Author's note, I don't always have my time lines straight from the comics, but I have read them all, sometimes though I get confused over what happens first, and who dies when, it's a hard time line to follow so errors in continuity must be forgiven. I don't own characters, etc, etc.
I tried to write this with as much realism as I could. Feedback appreciated.
This story starts immediately after the issue of Teen Titans where Rose shows up naked in Robin's bed and tries to seduce him. In the comic he turns her down, quite rudely, this alternative timeline imagines that perhaps he did not. It's not really a romance, it's supposed to be about two kids dealing with less then ideal circumstances together, and even though they put their lives on the line every day as part of their job, this very grown up situation is a hard pill for them to swallow.
...
They were only sixteen, they were already ancient in all the ways that really mattered. They had lived through a dozen wars, and learned how to say goodbye to loved ones as only heroes are taught, violently and mercilessly.
Ultimately they blame their teenage hormones, and no one was fooled, but everyone pretended to be. No one said it, but everyone thought it, two nearly broken teenagers desperately clinging to each other just to have something to hold on to. Filling the voids left from departed friends with each other, grasping tighter just prove they haven't died themselves. Please, he begs, it's not clear if he's asking her to stop or continue, she replies, maybe, he gasps and shudders and all his walls of control fall down around them and she is just as swept away in the moment as he. Calloused hands on smooth skin, her white hair mingles on the pillow with his black locks. For a moment they are dead and have ascended to heaven, together they choke and learn how to breath again. Long into the night and morning, she holds him and strokes his hair while he sleeps peacefully for the first time in ages.