Disclaimer: Still not mine
As soon as he entered his bedroom he saw her silhouetted by the moonlight, even in its silvery rays she clung to the shadows. He felt a pang in his chest that he quickly subdued.
"Raven?"
"Robin," She sighed and turned to look at him, "It's been awhile." Her face was still hidden in the shadows, but he could feel her eyes look at him.
"Ten years." He said inanely, not being able to think of much else to say. He drank in her form, still petite and slim, covered in a leotard similar to the one she used to wear long ago. A cloak sat at her shoulders, as it always had.
Dark, mysterious and filling him with more questions that answers, as she had always done, he paused to reflect. He absently rubbed his breastbone as the pain flared again.
"What are you doing here?" He praised his shocked brain for finally computing a question.
"Time is a funny thing isn't it?" She paused still studying him in that way she had. "It can confuse you by taking your wishes and dreams, overlaying them with what really happened, until you don't know what was real and what you wanted to be real."
"I don't understand." He said, his mind swirling, had she gone mad. Was this the beginning of the future that Star had seen so long ago? No, he wouldn't let that happen to his Raven.
"Of course you don't." She said this softly, almost to herself.
She took a step towards him; he reached for the lamp that sat on the table near his bed.
"Don't; let it be dark a little longer." Her voice pleaded, startling him Raven didn't plead.
"Only if you tell me why you are here, why now, what is going on?" Questions fell from his lips, crowded his brain and his heart.
"Robin do you remember what it was like, all those years ago?" She said as she sat on the side of his bed, her face now half visible in the moonlight. She had fulfilled the beauty that had only been hinted at when she had been a child.
"Yeah, sure I do. It was a big part of my life, always will be. It created who I am now." He stepped forward and sat on the other side of the bed.
"What happened with you and Star?" She asked suddenly, her question seemingly out of nowhere.
Something was obviously bothering her, ten years later, he could still read her fairly well.
Well if she wanted to pretend that she had come here to reminisce about there days as Titans, he could accommodate her. For now.
"Well, I don't know how to explain it." He paused, trying to guess what she was asking. He felt a little uncomfortable with the question as well.
"We all knew that you felt something for her, and don't try to tell me that she was nothing more than a sister. I am not stupid, I'm an empath. You wanted her, you loved her. She felt the same. What happened to all that? Love doesn't just disappear, does it?" She sounded almost childlike in her questioning, like she was searching for something.
This was not a topic he had ever thought to discuss, at least not with Raven. He knew that since her father's defeat years ago she had been exploring her feelings, she didn't have to be so unemotional. But she still hid behind her comfortable façade or at least she had been the last time he had seen her. Ten years was a long time though.
"Uh," He paused, trying to organize his thoughts. Maybe she had found love and lost it herself, maybe that was why she had come to him with these questions. "It was love, I suppose. The hot burn of a passion was there definitely, but it wasn't the type to last. No I never loved her like a sister." He gave a slight smirk at that. "Maybe it was just young love, something that burned brightly while it lasted and then banked into a friendship when it was gone." He shrugged and looked at her.
"Do you still love her?"
"In a way, yes I probably always will. But like I said it's banked into something like friendship, I am happy for her marriage, for the happiness she has found on her planet. She is someone I exchange brief pleasantries with when we meet or talk and I don't feel that want for more." He sighed, "I don't know if that answers your questions, or even really explains it, but that is the best I can do."
"No, I think I understand now." She stood, "Why didn't you try to stay in contact with me?" She walked back to his window and looked out; the sashes blew gently in the breeze.
"I..." He paused struck, she didn't know he had, through Cyborg and the rest, he had always asked after her. "I kept track of you Raven, through the others. Why didn't you stay in contact with me?"
"Did you despise me so much, that you were grateful for my disappearance?" She asked, ignoring his question.
"No, I never despised you Raven." He stood up and crossed the room quickly, touching her for the first time, turning her by the shoulders to face him. "And you never disappeared; I always knew where you were. Cyborg keeps track of us all very well."
"Time is a funny thing Robin." She repeated her earlier statement, her amethyst eyes meeting his, through the mask of his Nightwing costume.
"I suppose it is," He looked at her, really looked at her for the first time. He tugged on the bond they shared, one he hadn't felt for a long time. "Why are you here Raven, why all these questions?" He asked softly, his hands still on her shoulders. His eyes staring deep into hers, searching for an answer.
"I don't really know, I needed answers I suppose." She smiled slightly as she looked up at him.
"Answers to what?"
"Questions I didn't even know I had, until recently." She sighed again, and turned her head away.
"Raven." Her name was a statement and a question all rolled in one.
"Sit down Dick, this may take me awhile." She stepped out of his hold and sat on the window sill; he moved back and sat on the end of his bed.
"Is something wrong?"
"No, nothing like that." She looked at him again. "I could have let it lie in the past, but I never liked questions and they hung there taunting me, so here I am, trying to get answers."
"Ok, I'll give you the best answers I can." He smiled at her, trying to reassure her, to steady her.
"Did you know that I loved you?" She asked, her eyes on his, holding him still with her quiet gaze. "Don't answer, I need to finish this and if you speak I may not."
She looked over her shoulder at the moon for a minute. "With a girl's heart I loved you, only I couldn't allow myself to feel for you. Then when I could, you were taken and I was just too scared to say anything." She looked back at him; his eyes were wide with shock behind his mask.
"I never knew." He managed to breath in the heavy silence, his heart hitched in his chest.
"Of course you didn't." She smiled at him, and he saw it and it was a rare and beautiful sight, "I wouldn't have done very well in my life if I wore my heart on my sleeve."
"No, no, I suppose you wouldn't have." He paused and looked at her again; taking in the details that time had wrought. Yes she still wore the same costume, but the curves that had always been hinted at were now pronounced. Her hair hung down to her shoulders now, and her face had lost the roundness of youth.
She was beautiful, this he had always known, but now she exuded a confidence she hadn't been able to ten years ago, a sexuality that came only with experience and age.
"Why are you telling me this now Raven, why the questions?" He asked, "Have you found someone that has captured your adult heart now?"
She gave him that look, the one full of a woman's mystery.
"Yes you could say someone has captured my heart, but they have held it for a long time. They don't know it, and I am not sure how to tell them, this is why I have come to you Robin." She stood again, "You have loved, in secret and in the open. I don't know how to do anything other than deny how I feel."
"Well, do you know how he feels?" He asked carefully, feeling like he had been punched in the gut.
"Partly, I am a good friend, was a great comrade. We've been apart for many years, but when I saw him the other night; I knew that my heart was his. I am not really sure how to explain it." She ran a frustrated hand through her hair, causing her cloak to fall off her shoulder.
"I understand," He paused a moment to look at this women who held the girl he had once known and loved. "You have to tell him if you want any peace from it."
"But what if he rejects me?" Her voice held her certainty that this would indeed be the result. "Do you think that this feeling will leave, that eventually I will feel for him what you now feel for Star?"
"I can't honestly say Raven, how long have you loved him?" He asked, wondering if it was someone that perhaps he knew.
"Looking back, I believe I have loved him since I met him, only I didn't know it." She paused and looked at him, "I want it to stop, and it hurts Robin." Her eyes held unshed tears. "It hurts to be near him and it hurts to be apart from him."
"Then tell him, even if he rejects you, at least you would have an answer. Closure could help you move on, to someone new or even alone." He stood up, once again in front of her, looking down into her face. "I don't see why he would reject you Raven; I think you worry for nothing. Then you could have what you are hoping for."
"I tried to hide from it. That is why I disappeared for so long. Why I was so impossible to find." She said answering one of his many unasked questions from earlier, seeming to ignore his statement and advice. "It didn't work. Time distorted my reality and my dreams until I didn't know what my real memories were. I remember being held, but I don't know if there was love in that or only friendship. I remember sacrifice from him to me, but again, love or friendship?"
"Could it not have been both?" He was genuinely curious now, who was this man who had so captured Raven's heart? Who was this man, which made her question everything?
Robin felt anger rise in his chest for the pain that this unknown person had caused her, this man should not be ignoring what was in front of him; he should be chasing her down and begging for what she was offering. 'Damned if he would reject Raven and walk away painlessly' Robin thought.
"Perhaps, I thought so once. Yet he turned to someone else, so I believed I was wrong." She took a step towards him, her eyes measuring him as she spoke. "But maybe he turned to someone else, because I could not speak?"
Her question sparked something in Robin, he looked at her closely, again trying to see where she was headed with all this and why she had come to him of all people.
"Do you not know yet Robin?" She asked softly in reply to the visible questions in his eyes. "You are a great detective, wonderful intuitive skills, but here you are blind still." She sighed and stepped away from him, back towards the window. She put a foot on the sill and turned to look at him.
"Raven." He shouted it as he ran to the window. He reached out and grabbed her arm, long past worrying about touching her. He took her shoulders, gripping her so she couldn't run, conveniently forgetting that she could phase away if she wanted.
"You told me to tell." She said softly, not looking at him.
"So I did." He voice was soft, his mind full. He tilted her face up so he could look in her eyes. "I am sorry."
"I know, perhaps now the pain will stop though." She went to move away, but his grip tightened.
"No Raven, I am sorry I have been the cause of so much pain, for so long." He searched inside himself for the words, the feelings he wanted to give her. "I wish you had come to me sooner." 'Or that I had gone to you' he thought silently
"Robin, don't worry about hurting me. I know that it was Star that had your heart so long ago. I know that I have been only an afterthought since the team said their good byes." Her eyes held his, pain and forgiveness shimmering in them, making his heart ache.
"Raven, I care for you. You have never been an afterthought. When I think of those days, you are always the first in my mind. Yes I loved Star, because she was easier, there was no danger of rejection from her. You I loved in the darkest part of my heart, a part I didn't even realize I had until I saw you standing here in my room. I went to Hell for you Raven, not because you were my team mate, but because I couldn't imagine life without you. I knew I wouldn't be able to live without you. These feelings were intense and frightening, too much for me at the time. So I hid them, stomped them into that dark corner and went with what was easy." He looked at her, trying to get her to understand, that he wasn't just saying the words to ease her away, but because they were truth.
"Robin." She started to say something and then stopped, looking at him.
"I can't say that I have been smart about my feelings for you, but I did what I thought you wanted." He sighed and took his hand off her shoulder to shove it through his hair, "Raven I'll be damned if I let you walk away from me again, not now."
"I don't understand, I thought that..." She stopped again, "I thought I would forget you and I didn't. No one said this would hurt or that it would be so hard. I have watched others love and it seemed so easy, why is this so hard?"
"Because this is us Raven, nothing we have ever done has been easy or without pain." He reached up and took of his mask before putting both hands back on her shoulders. Blue eyes met purple; so many things were said in the silence. Forgiveness was asked and given freely.
"Do you think it will get easier?" Her question was soft and instead of shattering the quiet, it blended with it.
"I think that it can." He said and pulled her into his arms, as he had wanted to since he had first seen her. "Welcome home."
"Home." She repeated quietly her head tucked beneath his chin, "Yes it is nice to be home again."