Shattered Surprises.
Disclaimer: I own nothing. Wish I did. :P
Summery: Its Robin's birthday, the others decide to throw a surprise party, as they did with Raven the year before. But as before, the surprisee has other things on their mind.
A/N: This fic is a birthday present for my friend Viv (Zigzag92), I hope you appreciate this Viv. :P. This is also my first one-shot, co-written by my friend Goth Feeiry, so half the credit for this goes to her. ♥
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Robin was idly flicking through the files in the evidence room, he sighed. He'd been in a depressed mood all week, the others didn't know why. They'd tried cheering him up, but their attempts had failed.
Beast Boy tried telling some jokes, but again, like always, they were terrible.
Starfire had tried several things; first, folk songs. He swore he could still feel the seismic vibrations in the floor and walls from that attempt. Next, she had tried some sort of traditional recipes, he'd made himself scarce before she'd even finished taking out the ingredients.
Cyborg had tried challenging him to a game of something or other on the Game Station, Robin had taken him up on it, but his heart hadn't been in it. Plus he'd lost, which didn't help his mood.
Raven…Raven had tried talking it over with him. But he'd clammed up, and she'd gotten nothing out of him.
That had been over the last few days, and still his was in a bunk about something, the others had no clue, except Raven, she suspected she might.
Meanwhile, in Ops, Raven was discreetly searching through the Tower's mainframe. Looking for any reason why Robin would be depressed. She came across a restricted file, she remembered back to when Beast Boy had snooped around in the mainframe a year before, and he had found…
She stopped. "Maybe that's it." She thought to her self. She then shut down the computer, and phased through the floor, looking for BB, Cy and Star. If she was right, they had work to do.
Robin walked back to his room in a half asleep state, it was 1:00 AM, having just come out of the evidence room after spending about four hours in there, he was going to bed. HE knew why he was so down. He knew what today was, it was the day before THAT day, and he hated it.
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8 am the next morning.
Robin slowly opened his eyes, and groaned.
"Oh yeah, it's today." He mentally grumbled.
As he dragged himself out of bed, he shuffled towards the on-sweet bathroom to take a shower, he was still a little tired.
About twenty minutes later, he emerged from his room all dressed in his uniform. He'd head down to the mall and pick up some flowers then head for Gotham tonight.
As he opened the door to the main room, he stopped dead. His masked eyes going wide.
"SURPRISE!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY ROBIN!!" the others cheered, except Raven, who just smiled.
There was a large banner that hung from the ceiling that said "HAPPY BIRTHDAY!" it was red, green and yellow, the colour of his uniform, plus, at either end, was a printed symbol that matched the one on his chest. There were also numerous streamers strung around the room.
The others were wearing paper hats. Since Beast Boy had expressly forbidden Starfire from making another throk'nar from meat, she had to settle with a paper replica, which she placed on Robin's head before he could blink.
Cyborg was holding a large chocolate cake, shaped like the Tower, Starfire had helped him bake it, though he had insisted on completely earth ingredients.
They were all wearing big, self satisfied smiles now, even Raven.
Robin blinked, trying to get his focus back.
"W-what's g-going…on?" he stammered, still in shock.
"Well, it's your birthday, and we decided to through a surprise party for you Robin." Raven replied, still smiling.
Robin blinked again. "H-how did you find out?" he asked, his voice loosing its stammer, and getting a little deep.
"Well, you've been depressed all week dude, so, we thought we'd cheer you up by throwing a surprise birthday party!" Beast Boy chirped, still smiling.
"And, to answer your question, I did some digging through the mainframe, thought I might find something. I found a restricted file, I didn't open it, but then it hit me. Beast Boy did the same thing last year, for the same reason, so I figured it was your birthday, looks like I was right." Raven replied, before taking a breath.
Robin's face hardened slightly. "No." he thought "Not today, why did she have to go digging? Ordinarily I would be thrilled to celebrate today, but then, it's the day before THAT day…" he trailed off his thoughts.
"And we got a piñata shaped like Batman! You know you wanna hit it!" Cyborg chirped with a big smile, holding up the candy stuffed replica of Robin's former mentor.
Despite himself, Robin smirked internally, he could just imagine himself hitting that stuffed thing, and what the real Bruce would say if he saw it.
"So we have spent all night preparing for the celebration!" Star giggled happily, floating four feet off the ground.
"Well, uh, look guys, it's not that I don't appreciate what you've done, it's just that…you kinda did all this work for nothing…" he trailed off and sighed, he really didn't want to hurt their feelings and they'd obviously put a lot of effort into it. For one thing, they'd been up all night, and they each looked tired behind their smiles. Smiles which had faded at his words; to be replaced by looks of confusion.
"I…just don't like my birthday…haven't for a long time." When he said this, he turned and began to walk out. "If you guys don't mind, I'd like to be alone." he said over his shoulder.
Beast Boy was the first to recover from the shock of his rejection. "It's just like last year, with Raven." he thought. He walked up to Robin and put his hand on Robin's shoulder.
"But dude—"
"I said LEAVE ME ALONE!" Robin yelled, spinning on the startled shape-shifter. "All of you please, just leave me be." He said, then turned and walked out the room quickly. Instantly Raven knew something was wrong, she could sense the anger, the pain…and sadness coming from him.
"Why's he sad?" she thought to herself.
"Dude…what was THAT about?" BB asked, the others just shook their heads.
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Robin stormed down the corridor. He felt bad for the way he just acted, but he was upset. If this day had come at any other time of the year except in this month, he would have been more than happy to celebrate his birthday with his friends, but it wasn't any other time of the year, and he wasn't happy. He felt like he should go back and apologise, explain, but he didn't feel like it. He could already feel the tears starting to pour down his cheeks, he tried to fight them, but he couldn't.
Today was supposed to be one of the happiest of his life, but it wasn't, because it was right before the worst day of his life, that same day that kept coming year after year, ruining his happiness.
Bruce and Alfred had understood his pain, so they had instead celebrated his birthday three months down the line, when the pain of this particular month had worked it's way back into the recesses of his mind.
He reached his door, and opened it, sliding inside, he locked it, ripped off his mask and threw himself on the bed, and began to sob.
The others, mean while, were still trying to recover from the shock of Robin's outburst.
"Ok…The party was a bad idea." Cy commented.
"Did we do something to displease him?" Star asked timidly.
"I don't think so, it was something else, I refuse to believe he never celebrated his birthday, he must have, but probably not on this actual day." Raven replied, through the bond that she and Robin shared, she could tell something was bothering him, she just didn't know what.
One thing was for sure, it was the reason he had been in a mood all week, and it was the cause of the sadness she sensed from him. Something had happened to him at some point, either on or very near his birthday, and it had hurt him so badly, he had refused to celebrate it again, or at least, on that day.
"Damn. We really screwed this one up." She thought.
"I'm going after him." She announced, before walking out the door before any of the other's could stop her.
As she reached Robin's door, she heard faint sounds, it almost sounded like he was crying. She cringed internally.
"Yep, we REALLY screwed up here." She thought, before gently knocking on the door.
"Robin? Are you alright? Can I come in?" she asked. She got no response. Sighing, she used her powers to phase through his door, and her eyes widened at what she saw.
She saw Robin lying on his bed, his back to her. She could tell he was shaking, what could he be crying so hard about? Raven didn't know, but she was going to find out.
She cautiously walked toward the bed, sat down on it and whispered, "Robin, I'm sorry. I just. I didn't think…"
Then what she heard next made her heart drop and the hair on the back of her neck stand up in fright. She heard Robin whispering to her, in a voice that could even scare Slade.
"Yeah, you didn't think did you, Raven? Did you actually think I wanted this?"
Raven turned her head, looking over her shoulder and she saw Robin was sitting up, she replied,
"You've been depressed all week and we just wanted to know why. You just had been locking yourself in your room without telling us what's wrong. We're your friends, Robin, and anything that you're going through, we can help you."
She then grabbed his wrist, which he pulled away and said, "Sounds familiar to me, you do the same exact shit. And you, or anyone else, can't help me through this." With that, he stood up and walked over to his window, still not turning to face her.
Raven sighed as she looked at him, she noticed how the moon was touching his skin as he looked out the window, but what she saw on his cheek made her worry. There was a tear mark that was shining in the moonlight.
She stood up and walked toward him, placing a hand on his shoulder, which made him jump. She said, "I'm right here, Robin. You told me once that we had a bond and I feel it now. I feel the emotions that are going through you. You're confused, angry, and…"
She then turned his head towards hers, staring into his blue depths, "You're very sad, I don't even need the bond to see that. If you can't tell anyone else, tell me what's wrong. You can trust me as much I trust you, we've been through so much, and can't you just trust me, just this once?"
Robin didn't know what to say to that, all he knew was when he looked into those violet eyes that were locking with his blue ones, he had to tell her.
He took a deep breath and said, "My parents…died the day after my eighth birthday, but what happened on my birthday I'll never forget."
Flashback
"Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday dear Richie, happy birthday to you!"
Richard Grayson, who was smiling widely, as he heard his parents sing to him, he looked at his cake, and blew out the eight little candles that sat on top of it. When he blew them out, his parents were clapping.
Then he heard his mom in the darkness, "What did you wish for, Richie?" As she said that, his dad, John Grayson, had turned the lights back on. Richard turned to his mother and said,
"Mom! I can't tell you! That's against the rules!" Mary Grayson raised an eyebrow at her son, "Against the rules? What rules?"
"The rule that you can't tell your wish or it won't come true!"
John Grayson chuckled at his son's ambition as he sat back down to his son, "You were probably wishing for some girl, weren't you?" When he saw Richard blush, he laughed.
Mary shook her head,
"Honestly John, leave the poor boy alone." John shrugged at his wife, "I couldn't help myself, Mary. He's just too easy to pick on." While he said this, he was pinching Richard's cheek slightly.
Richard pulled away from his dad's torture and said, "Dad! Cut it out! I'm not a little kid anymore!"
"Oh right! You are a young man now, eight years old."
Mary smiled at the two of them before she heard the phone ring. She said to John, "I'll be right back. You two get yourselves a piece of cake." She then walked out of the room, where Richard started to chow down on his cake, but his dad was looking worried.
He swallowed before he asked, "What's wrong, dad?"
"I don't know, son. Don't worry about it."
But after a few minutes, they both heard Mary crying in the next room. Richard saw his father automatically stand up and walk into the next room. Richard, as curious as he is, quietly got out of his chair, walking over to the door, he placed his ear as the door and heard his mother.
"I don't know what to do, John. He threatened us, not just us, but Richard too. If we don't do what he says, he says we will see our maker sooner than we think." Richard stepped back, confused.
What were they talking about?
End of Flashback
"So, your parents were threatened? By whom?" Raven asked as both she and Robin were sitting on his bed. Robin sighed,
"Anthony Zucco, the new ringmaster at the Circus, at least from what I've heard anyway. He threatened them, but at that time I didn't know why. I heard my parents were going to define him, and then he killed them. Right in front of my eyes."
Flashback
"But mom, why do I have to sit out and watch?"
Mary Grayson, who was already in her costume, looked at her son. Richard was sitting in their trailer, looking depressed. Mary kneeled down in front of him, "Richie, you know you're not ready yet."
"But mom…"
"No buts, mister. I said no and your father agrees with me, so don't ask him." She then did something that made Richard worry, she hugged him tightly,
"Oh Richie, honey, don't ever change the way you are. You are the best son anyone can ever have and I love you, baby." When Richard saw her pull back, there were tears running down her face. But before Richard could ask what was wrong, his father came through the door.
His father was smiling widely until he saw tears on Mary's face, he was whispering something to her, but Richard only heard, "It's going to be okay."
John turned his head toward his son and fake-smiled, "Hey kiddo, you ready to see me and your mom knock it dead out there?"
Richard nodded enthusiastically and said, "Yeah dad, let's go!"
As he watched Richard run out of the trailer, he sighed as he looked at Mary, "It's going to okay."
Mary, her blue eyes filling with tears, she asked, "Are you really that sure, John? I don't want to leave my baby. He's still so young and he needs us." John hugged Mary close to him and whispered,
"I promise, we will always be here for our little man."
"And for our final act, the Flying Graysons!"
Richard was clapping as hard as the crowd when he saw his parents high in the sky, waving at the crowd. Then as the music started, he could swear that time was standing still.
His eyes were casted at his parents, who were doing their act perfectly before he heard a rip and a scream, he soon found out it was his own screams. And, before he knew it, his parents were on the ground, blood pooling around them.
His legs were carrying him over to his parents as he kneeled before them, crying freely.
"Mommy?! Daddy?! No!" He was sobbing loudly as he was lying on his parents, feeling his heart break more.
End of Flashback
By the time Robin was done explaining, he felt tears flowing out of his blue eyes. He looked at Raven, and he was surprised to find tears running down her face. She said to him,
"I never knew that it was that horrible."
Robin nodded, "It was. I could've done something, if I knew what was going on…"
"Robin, it wasn't your fault. It was nobody's fault. Your parents' death was meant to happen." Robin sniffed,
"I know it was meant to happen, but why did it happen to me? My life was going great, I had my family, I had love in my life and everything. Why were they taken from me, Raven? Why?"
Noticing he was about to break down, Raven hugged him close to her and whispered, "No ones, Robin. Life is very delicate and everything happens for a reason. But think about this, if your parents weren't killed, you would've never met your friends, Cyborg, Beast Boy, Starfire,"
She then pulled back, looking straight into his eyes, "And me. I would probably be dead if it wasn't for you. And I can't even think about my life without you, you are probably the most influential person in my life. And Robin, you might not think this way, but I do. I'm glad they left you in with us, to lead us, to train us, and to love you as the person you are."
Robin felt more tears running down his face at Raven's speech, that he leaned his forehead against her's, replying, "Thank you, Raven. You really are my best friend and someone I can really count on."
Raven smiled, "You're welcome, Robin. Now, do you want to come celebrate with us or do you wanna sulk?" Robin grinned as he reached across from her and grabbed his mask,
"Let's go. I'm sure they're wondering what we're doing in here." By the end of the sentence, he was wiggling his eyebrows at her. Raven rolled her eyes and playfully punched his shoulder,
"Let's just go, Richard." She then saw him smile, "What? Why are you smiling?"
"You called me Richard." Raven raised an eyebrow, "That's your name, isn't it? Richard John Grayson?" Robin smiled as he put his arm around her shoulder as they walked out of his room.
"Yes it is and you'll be the only who knows, Raven."
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THE END.
Please read and review! Once again, this was co-written by Goth Fiery, so she get's half the credit for this.
I hope you liked this present Viv!