Prompt: 5 times someone thought Robin had Issues

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Five Times Someone Thought Robin Had Issues

1: Identity

It's not just the name, Wally muses, watching Robin while Batman briefs them. It's the whole deal; everything Wally knows about Robin that no one else (okay, except Robin... and Batman... and Alfred) knows about him. It's about him being Richard Grayson, adopted son of (Batman) Bruce Wayne.

It's about them not being able to just hang and talk about girls and movies and school stuff anymore – because Wally goes to school in a different city, so they hang out in Mount Justice... where Miss Martian and Superboy live... where Batman has used up a crate of bugs under the guise of 'internal security'.

And where Speedy isn't, which means he isn't keeping Kaldur busy. Behavioural scientifically speaking, two is the most stable number; three, the least; four falls somewhere between, since it can easily split into two twos. Case in point: the strange little twosomes their foursome split into as soon as their mentors were busy. Behavioural science didn't give the odds on five, but Wally's hopeful that even if they do split, he can get himself into a twosome with M'gann.

Robin will probably be the onesome left over, Wally thinks, if that split ever comes. Kaldur's adopted Superboy as some sort of Speedy emotional replacement, which Wally is just fine with.

He half suspects that Robin's gunning for the onesome, given the way he shuts M'gann down every time she hints that she might like to know more about him. That's usually where Wally breaks in, covers his teammate's back, and offers up more information about himself than M'gann could ever possibly need to know.

It sucks that he and Robin can't talk anymore because one little slip could give it all away (like that he has a tutor instead of going to school, like that he watches movies on a big screen in his basement instead at the theatre, like that he bought his girlfriend-of-the-moment a diamond bracelet for Valentines instead of the bunch of mixed flowers Wally bought for his), but he'll deal. Robin's pathological need for secrecy won't split them down the middle.

2: Circuses

Six inches from Robin's face, M'gann can't help but feel the discomfort coming off Robin in waves. She doesn't understand, but she doesn't want to pry; to invade his privacy and alienate him more than she already has.

She almost wants to back off, because whatever reason he has, it's no doubt a good one. But, "It's a circus," Wally says. "And Superboy's never been to one!"

"Neither have I," she adds. "There are festivals on Mars, but I'm curious to see to what the differences between there and here are. Please Robin?"

He stares at her mulishly, face pale against his shades. She wonders if it has something to do with the notoriously bad illumination at circuses. After all, sunglasses dim the eye's perception of the light the sun produces. Perhaps Robin does not care for the hindrance to his senses.

He clenches his jaw. "You can go, if you want. I'll stay here." Images flash through her brain so quickly she barely realizes that they've broken through her shields. Blood splashed along the walls of the Big Top, two bodies falling, a smoking gun, a broken down Ferris Wheel, a pasty face framed with unwashed green hair and both corners of his lips split into a macabre grin emphasized with red paint, a sinister leer asking "Why... so... serious?", a knife with a wicked edge inches from her face.

With everything she has, she clamps down on her reaction, praying she gives no hint of what she's seen.

"Okay," she answers. "We'll see you later tonight then?" Robin's eyes narrow at her, but he nods tightly.

3: Authority

Robin's gone again. Aqualad frowns to himself, and thinks Robin, what do you think you're doing?

Heading off the pursuit. If I can get into the system, I can get them headed in the wrong direction.

That wasn't the plan, Robin! Privately, inside a mental lock-box M'gann helped him set up to manage the psychic link he ends up ordering on nearly every mission now, he wonders if Robin has a problem with authority. Or maybe not. Batman wouldn't have kept him on if he couldn't follow orders.

Robin is heading off the pursuit and isn't there when an explosion and falling debris cut them off from the escape path they'd planned out. Aqualad bites back a curse when the detour forces them into the path Robin sent Cobra's minions down.

He arrives in time to give them a victory, but not in time to keep Wally from getting a fractured rib when one of the minions smashes him to the wall with a lucky strike; not in time to keep M'gann from getting shot with a laser; not in time to help with the six or seven who pin Superboy to the ground.

Kaldur expresses his displeasure with pursed lips, and Robin thinks, Sorry guys. Seemed like a good idea at the time.

Batman tells Kaldur, "If it were a matter of finding the right keyword or attitude, I'd tell you to figure it out on your own. You were right when you noticed that Robin's used to working with me; he's not used to having to communicate. But Gotham's a big city. He's used to working alone as well. I haven't given him orders since he was ten."

Kaldur's eyebrows shoot up, because he's heard Batman give Robin orders lots of times.

Batman's lips – the only visible section of his face – almost twist into a smile. "Try giving him orders he's going to follow anyway. It'll get him used to listening to you when you have to give one for real."

4: Replacements

Superboy doesn't understand. Batman is just about the ideal mentor – everything Superboy wishes he could have in Superman – but Robin's voice when speaking to him is scathing and angrier than Superboy's ever heard.

"Batman, I don't get it. Why now?"

"Robin... I'm not Superman. I'm not The Flash."

"Duh."

"I can't cover all of Gotham alone. I need another set of hands and yours are occupied. Tim's a good kid. You could really help him out if you wanted to."

"That's my point! Tim is a kid! He's gonna get killed out there!"

Sometimes, Superboy thinks that super-hearing is a curse – particularly whenever Artemis and Kid Flash start 'laying into one another'. Superboy frowns. That phrase is disturbingly similar to one that Kid Flash uttered a few days ago, about 'needing to get laid'. On reflection, he wondered if they were related and what that would mean for the team dynamics.

His frown turns into a scowl. Robin had not been nearly so temperamental or hostile when Artemis had been introduced to them. Superboy suspects that Robin may be jealous of the boy's status as Batman's new protégé, his new Robin. That sentiment, Superboy can understand.

"Oh yeah? What about Jason?"

Superboy cocks his head to the left, an unconscious gesture as he focuses to hear Batman's reply. If he makes a reply, Superboy doesn't hear it. Robin says, "Hey... I'm... I'm sorry. That was out of line."

"Yes," Batman says, finally. "It was. What happened to Jason..."

"Wasn't anybody's fault, I know that. I just... Tim's just a kid."

"I know. That's why I'm assigning you to supervise and assess his training over the next six months. At that point, if he's ready, you and I will both see how he performs on the street."

5: The Dark

Dick's never been afraid of the dark. As a tiny boy, watching his mother and father thrown into sharp relief by the spotlight even as they threw themselves off platforms for the delighted crowds, he sat in darkness. It never contained the monsters other children described.

Not like the monsters that dance across his vision now. Objectively, he knows that it's the gas - Scarecrow's gas that got hooked up to the ventilation system in the middle of the night. Terrible nightmares followed by a more terrible morning.

They are all – all six of them – trained to show no fear, to resist fleeing and making it someone else's problem. They are the someone else. Superboy is destroying the walls, the floor; everything he can touch. In Robin's eyes he morphs into monsters like Robin's never seen. M'gann phases rapidly between tangible and intangible, sending furniture flying into nothing at random intervals.

Robin doesn't know where Wally, Artemis and Kaldur are... he doesn't want to know. He's never felt the urge so strongly; to fight against the mobsters who flicker in and out of his peripheral vision; to turn, and face them; to kill and make them go away forever.

He's faced this gas before, though, and he knows what to do. Slithering into the ventilation ducts, his shaking fingers pull up the schematics on his wrist interface. The light nearly blinds him. Joker's grinning face leers at him behind the screen. He shuts his eyes and banishes the apparition. He is not hearing Harlequin's laughter right now, it's just his imagination. He crawls and wiggles his way to the gas canister and turns it off.

Then he shuts off his interface, and does his best to wait it out. It's pitch dark, aside from the sunspots on the insides of his eyelids. And he is safe. Batman will come. He always does. Batman lives in the dark, and Dick has never been afraid of the dark. If that makes him a little weird, well... you have to be to save the world.