Parachute
Type: Romance/Angst
Characters: Raven and Robin
Song: Parachute- Train
One-shot
Date: Tuesday April 6, 2010
I wanna take you with me
To a life with no more yesterdays
We can start again awake and so excited
And change the way we always push
We always push…
Hours grow late and days grow long, but I can never sleep for my thoughts of you. This thought ran around and around in Raven's head as she lay across her bed. Both her eyes were closed, and someone that did not know her would have assumed her to be asleep. Raven, however, was far from sleeping, although she longed for it.
She just couldn't open her eyes to look down at the blood-soaked clothes she'd shorn from her body, throwing them to the floor, before lying down. Not that the thoughts weren't with her- In her head she could still see everything that had occurred in the battle that she now knew to have happened over twelve hours ago, somewhere in her mind.
She could still see the injuries that were her fault across the chest of the Boy Wonder, painfully red and bloody, in her mind's eye.
Her eyes snapped open as the image of Robin swam into it and she quickly left the bed. Sleep would have been welcome, except that the inactivity required for sleep left her mind with time to race. And so she stood, grabbing for the nearest set of shoes and walking towards a seemingly solid black wall. With little effort, she flung aside a set of heavy black drapes and began to fuss with the drapes, which were heaver than she remembered.
Or perhaps she was weaker than she remembered whichever the case was. Either way, as she finally jerked the little-used pane of glass across its sill, she found herself looking downward. A fine burst of wind caught her, reminding her that her cloak was missing, and she turned away from it, watching the black curtains flutter.
She picked up a cloak that was draped over one of the chairs, reminding of her of just how little time she'd given herself to be alone the last few weeks. Everything ran through her, a turmoil that she usually fought to keep to the surface. At the same time, however, she felt that all of that overwork made little to no difference; had she been fully rested, the last twenty-four hours would have had the same effect on her.
Again the height of her window swam into her mind, and she saw a body, broken and bleeding, falling…
She shook her head. No more thinking, she told herself firmly, and with one last look at the rocks below, dove out the window, feeling for a moment the indescribable joy of the freedom that could only be described as flight.
Even that joy was short-lived and she found herself landing up on one of the many ledges on the small island, her back to the windows, to the giant luminous 'T'-shaped building that had so marked the landscape. Her head felt heavy and she realized how close her regret was to the surface. Tucking her long, gray legs under herself, she tried to prepare to meditate, but a face swam into her mind, its eyes looking haunted and weak. She knew if she turned around, she might see them all crowded around a bed…
No, not around his bed. He'd have moved upstairs already, have been at least somewhat safe, she reminded herself. He hadn't died. He could've, had it not been for Starfire and her brave rescue.
She wasn't sure why her stomach turned at the thought of her red-headed friend carrying the boy from the bottom of the building. Maybe it was her aversion to blood, to the way she'd been forced to go running to them to try to heal him…
Somehow, though, she felt like the feeling was more deeply rooted than that.
As she sat there with her head bowed, Raven found herself longing for a change. I'd given anything for it to be yesterday, she thought over and over. Anything at all to go back to a time before I almost had the death of a friend on my hands.
Or more than a friend… The caught fought her off-guard and she stood up, disgusted with herself. She had already known that this ugly part of her would surface, that she had been ignoring by drowning herself in work. Even when she'd been drowning in that work, it had come up at odd times, like when she and Robin sat around the tables late into the night and she wondered whether or not he actually saw her…
The image flashed before her again of him falling eagle-spread, a broken-winged bird, and all romantic thoughts passed from her mind. Unable to stand or find a place that would be satisfactory to run, Raven slumped back down to her knees in the dirt, both hands gripping her hair tightly as she struggled for control.
A moment passed, an unseen wind ruffling the purple locks between her skinny fingers, and then the wind, and the moment, was gone. Her eyes clouded, then unclouded, and her words escaped in an accidental hiss:
"I. Hurt. You."
She sat down completely, closing her eyes and drawing her knees up to her head so that she rested, a perfect kind of half-circle. The longing in her for the last couple nights and days they'd spent sitting at the desk was almost all-consuming. She focused and set one of the pebbles in front of her shooting out into the falling darkness of night, silhouetted weirdly against the sunset.
The splash seemed like the loudest noise in the world as the stone hit the water with enough force to create a tiny wave, which rippled up against the cliff bluff with a rhythm that was part soothing, part disturbing.
With her moment of lost control over, Raven stood up. The thought hung in her mind heavily: I'd give anything to quit thinking about yesterday.
For some reason, this thought conjured up a memory.
Robin sat inches away from her. The papers were strewn across the table, making patterns where there were not patterns. The information upon each and every page was useless, at least in Raven's eyes, but Robin was pouring over some of them for the third, fourth, fifth time, and his eyes were alight behind his mask. She remembered wondering in an off-hand way what the eyes behind that mask looked like, but blinked it away at the sound of his voice.
"…The west side or the east side?" He looked frustrated and frazzled, his hands raking their way through his disorderly black hair. He was tense beside her, and she was full of the strangest urge to reach out and brush his shoulder.
"West," she said, almost without thinking.
"Are we sure though?"
"Are we really going to find him if he doesn't want to be found?"
"Shut up," Robin said, suddenly stern. "I'm just not sure you're taking this mission seriously. Yesterday you said…"
"Yesterday, yesterday, yesterday," She'd snapped then. "Why the hell are you so fixated on what I said and did yesterday? I never meant for him to get away and I promised you I'd help you."
"I know," he said, and she saw a momentary softening- Real or imagined, she knew she would probably never know. "I'm sorry."
"It's fine," she replied. At that moment, they had both reached out for the same piece of paper, green resting for the briefest of seconds across pale skin, and two hands roughly pulling back together.
They had laughed for a moment, awkwardly, embarrassingly, before Robin's hair made their way back into the spikes of hair that he was twisting in rage, in fear, thinking about loss and all things passed.
Raven knew, even then, even convincing herself that past attacks by the man known as Slade were the most important thing, that she longed to stop him from thinking about yesterday, tomorrow, or the day after, and to touch his shoulder.
Instead, they'd worked late into the night…
She shook her head, looking around the darkening island. Darkness was falling quickly, quietly, and she stood, her head still full of thoughts of lost yesterdays, and of what she would find in the living room.
She feared what she would have to confront when she arrived there. Again the longing touched her, and she pulled her hood up to shield her eyes as she started to walk towards home. Unfortunately for her, she could not get the feeling that sooner or later she was going to have to confront the scene that all the pushing and pulling had led them to.
My fault… She thought to herself quietly, and her feet felt just a tiny bit heavier as she reached her home.
I'll open up and be your parachute
And I'll never let you down
So open up and be my human angel
And we'll only hit the ground
Running
And when the world gets sharp
And tries to cut you down to size
Or makes you feel like giving in
I will stay, I will rain
I will wash the words and pain away
And I will
Chase away the way we push
The way we pull
You're beautiful…
The room was dark and crowded, as all rooms tended to be with a small room, a half-robot, two overly-energetic teenagers, and a bed containing a man with enough mis-matched emotions for all four of the room's occupants. Robin lay there in a state of half-recovery, one arm in a tight splint, wearing only a pair of lounge pants, He stared without focus at the wall, then asked the one question no one knew how to answer:
"Where is Raven?"
"Friend Raven has gone," Starfire answered, shaking, for what felt like the third or fourth time that day. "Robin, friend Raven had to go away."
"She was really torn up, man."
"And none of you tried to convince her to stay?" Robin rolled onto his back to sit, trying to face the three of them, but unable to sit up. "What made her say she was going? Did she say?"
"She thought you were going to die, dude," Beast Boy pointed out. "She thought you were going to die."
"But why the hell would she leave? Why the hell would she leave?" The voice cracked, and Cyborg leaned up and over him, gently brushing a small bowl of healing lotion that Raven had left in his care over the wounds on Robin's chest as he began to cough.
"Don't think about it right now," he said to Robin, who fell into a silence. Starfire and Beast Boy, unable to take anymore, both stood, quietly making excuses, and Robin watched them go with what he hoped could pass for a less than complacent expression. Inside he was fuming; they were all acting as though he were a child, incapable of standing or fending for himself. And they refused to tell him much of anything.
"You okay man?" Cyborg asked him. "You mind if I step out for a few minutes?"
"Fine," Robin grunted at him, but then sighing, realizing he was being unfair. "I just need to sleep, Cy. I'm going to be just fine. I promise."
"Well man, if you say so. I'm gonna be upstairs if you need anything." Cyborg gave him one last look, something like a sad look in his human eye, and then he was gone.
Robin was left alone in the too-small room at the top of the stairs- not the room where he usually slept, but the place where they treated and consulted each other post-battle. Everything about it bothered him; the white walls, the bed he was confined to, the mirror that sat at the foot of it. He felt invalid, trapped in his own body, and the cast on his arm served to confirm the sinking feeling in his stomach.
As he laid there, he tried to think again to that night…
He and Raven had been sitting around the table downstairs. She had looked, in his mind, oddly worn out, like she was struggling with something, but he dared not to ask her; there were papers to go through, there was work to be done. She held out something for her to see, and he brushed her hand, hoping to instill some kind of contact comfort in her. A small part of his mind rejected this rational, but he quickly shut it off.
Thankfully, a noise helped him to shut himself down completely; the alarm went off, a loud, piercing noise, and three sets of feet came thundering down the stairs and into the sanctuary that he felt they had started to create. "What's up?" Beast Boy asked, the look on his face suggesting that he was taking in the way Raven's leg brushed up against Robin's thigh accidentally when they stood.
sitting until this moment. The name that flashed up across the screen, however, drove any and all thoughts of research, Raven, or anything else from his mind.
"Slade! Raven, he's come to us!" He said to the girl, who looked completely petrified. Her eyes suggested that the months they had spent on their project had instilled her with a fear and loathing of Slade that could not be explained.
"South sector," Cyborg reported, looking at the screen. "Not sure what the disturbance is."
"Are you sure about this, Robin?" Raven had asked him. Something in her eyes suggested fear. "I have reason to…"
"We're going to catch him!" He'd barked out, and they'd left.
How stupid could I have been? Robin thought, looking down at his arm. She knew something important, wanted me to trust her, and I didn't.
And now she's gone.
Raven, meanwhile, walked up to the door, thinking about how she should have tried harder to prevent the team from walking into disaster. She saw three of the four forms of her teammates in the large glass windows, Starfire sitting on the couch between the two boys. Although she had no idea what was being said, she couldn't help but assume it was about her goodbye to them a few short hours earlier.
She tried not to think about that, but the memory was playing inside of her head. She should've pointed out to Robin that the South Sector was not under Slade's control, that if he was there, he was confident. He had to be waiting there. But she had stopped when he had told her to stop, and the result…
Again an image of a man falling, falling backwards off a roof, making a slow descent to the earth, and coming up bloody and a mess in Starfire's arms…
Suddenly she could not bear to not think anymore, and so she let the memory roll behind her eyes, watching the moment they had arrived on that rooftop.
It had all seemed so wrong, somehow. From the moment they'd landed at the abandoned warehouse, everything in Raven shrieked that something was wrong; the problem was that she had no clue what it could be, and did her best to push it out of her mind.
The battle had seemed too routine, too mundane. Slade was nowhere to be seen, and Robin had charged ahead to look for him, charging up a set of stairs. She went to follow, and suddenly, without warning, had come upon a battle on the roof.
Robin was engaged in a hand-to-hand style of combat with Slade, the two of them standing face to face. "I'm not going to let you win, you bastard! You aren't getting away from me!"
"Robin, Robin, is that any way to greet me?" Slade swung himself off to the side and out of reach of Robin's staff, grinning as he almost took the teen's legs out from under him. Robin's side-step did little to reassure Raven, who crouched, convincing herself that she would jump up when the time came and save him. She lurked in the shadows, listening and watching, her violet eyes huge with pain.
"I hate you! I hate you and I can't wait to kill you! Justice will be served!"
"Robin, Robin, your fixation on justice is quite charming, but honestly, we both know you're only here to 'kill' me so that you can protect her," Slade said. His eyes glowed with malice. Robin was thrown so off-guard by the remark that he was slammed in the chest and had to roll to one side.
Raven saw the blood as he stood. "I'm here to protect this city!"
"The city," Slade asked, "Or the little bird girl?"
"How… How did you…?" Robin asked, and in his shock and confusion he was struck again. This time the cut was deeper; he staggered noticeably into a one-kneed kneel, struggling to regain his grip on his bo-staff through the pain.
"I know plenty of things, Robin," Slade had said. At that moment, Raven had peeked her head up, had prepared to scream the words that could knock Slade to his death if only she could say them in time…
Robin had seen her, though, had tried to yell something. The moment was largely confusing, a mingle of voices. She was aware that she had cried for help at the same moment that Starfire had come up the stairs screaming. She was aware that a staff had hit Robin squarely in the chest, and that he had started to fall. And then she was aware of a stabbing pain in her right side.
The handle of the knife protruded from her flesh. "It will hurt him more than you are wounded, dear," said a soft voice above her head. "I promise."
Raven looked over and saw Starfire. In her arms she held a badly-injured, but still breathing, Robin. In that moment, Raven's stomach had twisted; she had lost the slightest bit of control, and a blast of black had knocked against Cyborg, who had come over and picked her up.
Hours later, she told her friends she could not stay. Without a reason or an explanation, she had made them believe that she was leaving. The only thought that went through her mind during those hours before she crept in through her bedroom window to sleep was like a mantra, repeating itself over and over:
This is all my fault.
Robin had stood up and walked to the window in his room, and looking out was convinced he saw her. The rain made it hard to tell, but he was almost certain that the girl standing out in the rain with the violet hair could be none-other than Raven. In a split-second, rash decision that was anything other than like him, he ran out into the rain, his splinted arm jarring painfully on his chest.
She looked up and was obviously startled to see him. "Robin…"
He grabbed at her wrist with his good hand before she could say anything further. "They told me you were gone!" He said. "Dammit, they told me you were gone. Do you know how afraid I was? I thought he was going to kill you! Dammit, why didn't you let me know you were there?!" Each question was harsh, accusatory, and he saw her recoil quite a bit.
"I… I let you fall," she finally said in a shallow voice. He could tell that she did not have all of her usual control and prowess, and he knew he had pushed her too far. Without thinking, he put his good arm around her wet, thin shoulders, and felt her trembling.
"You didn't. I… I should have listened to you. It was a trap. I let him get into my head."
"Why… Why did it bother you that he said he would hurt me?" Raven asked, slipping out from under his arm and resting on a rock. She's not going to make this easy, he realized. She wants to know exactly what she's getting herself into here.
"I was scared to death," he said, "That something would happen to you."
"That's not a why," she snapped.
"I could say the same for you," he said. "I want to know why you said you were leaving."
"Because I can't have you so focused on me that you're injured," she admitted honestly, and then quickly turned her head away. He knew he was watching something rare; an external struggle for internal control. She chewed her lip, her hands ran through her wet hair, and her breathing struggled to become more regular.
"It wasn't your fault," he said, his hand touching her back. "I promise it wasn't your fault."
"But it was," she whimpered, as though in pain. Robin could not think; he wrapped her in his good arm before any kind of rational could tell him not to. The rain washed over them, and her tiny body shuddered in his grasp. Her arms clenched, her body shook, and her face grew pale. He could tell that every inch of her was struggling for control she could not gain.
"I can't do this," she said, pulling away from him. As she turned and ran into the rain he stood in a state of shock, watching her leave, his empty arm reaching out for what was not there. All he could think about was the pain that she must be feeling, the raw emotion she never allowed anyone to see before.
"I couldn't have you so focused on me that you're injured," she had said. He knew there were implications to that statement; he was just too afraid to focus on the how or the why of them.
Instead, he gave chase with a strength he did not know he had, seeing that she had fallen, that an energy was crackling dangerously around her.
Stupidly, all he could think was that he wanted to hold her. All he could think was that she was beautiful. All he could think was that he wanted her to stop blaming herself for everything that had occurred.
He already knew everything Slade had said was true. Now he wanted to act upon it, to prove that love was more than a fool's sediment.
But he felt like a fool none the less.
I'll open up and be your parachute
And I'll never let you down
So open up and be my human angel
And we'll only hit the ground
Running
And if it feels like we might drown
It will stop so don't look down
It wouldn't be the same without you.
This life is too good to give up on…
As Robin reached Raven, he could see she was falling to pieces. The energy around her, black and stagnate, was tearing at her clothes, and he could see that she was crying. Every inch of her frame shook, and as he closed in, broken arm bouncing painfully, he heard the most pathetic sob he'd ever heard: "My fault," she cried, over and over.
"Raven, it's not your fault!" He screamed, reaching out for her, only to have his good hand knocked back. Something in her mind wanted to resist him, since it could resist itself no longer.
"I let you fall! I let him stab me and I let you fall!"
"That… That bastard!" Robin shouted. "Where did he stab you? I'll kill him! Raven… Raven…" He tried in vain to reach for her as once again she broke down, breathing deeply, fighting for some kind of internal control. Robin knew it was not safe to stand beside her, but he knew he had to catch her, had to save her.
"Robin…" She extended her hand to him even as she cried, and without thinking he grabbed it. The energy flowing through her seemed to cease as she lay there, the side of her body suit torn away to reveal a long, flanking scar down her pale left side, sitting just under her rib cage.
He touched it with a kind of mute shock. "He… He did this to you…"
"To hurt you," she whispered quietly, her eyes red-rimmed and full of a pain Robin had never seen there. "Robin, I can't stay, or he'll…"
"Raven." Robin put a finger to her lip. "Don't speak. Not now…" He left his hand on her side, kneeling there with his hair plastered to her forehead. "Just listen."
"This," he said, looking her directly in the eyes, "Was not your fault. How Slade knew what I feel for you, I'll never know, but that isn't what matters. What matters is I should have seen this coming, and I should have protected you."
"But I should have kept you from falling," she whispered. The pain was starting to come back into her face. "But Starfire saved you… She's the better match for you."
"Raven, which part of even Slade knew I love you aren't you understanding?" Robin asked her, leaning down to look into her face with a kind of quizzical concern. "Starfire is a good friend, but she could never be what you are to me."
Raven reached up to embrace him. "Are you sure you aren't mad at me for not catching you?" She whispered in his ear, her cheeks hot and salty with her tears against his neck as she sat, half-cradling him, half-asking to be cradled.
"Raven, you've already caught me when I've fallen," he whispered. His arm wrapped around her, although he winced as her crushing weight came down on his arm.
"I'm sorry," she whispered, moving away from him.
He kissed her cheek softly in reply. "There is no need to be sorry," he whispered to her. "Not anymore."
They sat like that for a while, rain washing over both of them. "I will never let you down," he promised softly. "No matter how bad this gets, I will not give up."
"I need you to promise me something," Raven whispered. "Promise me next time we'll think before we leap."
"I won't have to think with you there to catch me," he said with a winning smile. "But I promise, Raven. I promise for you."
"Thank you," she said softly. "Thank you Robin."
She stood, holding out a hand for him. Part of her noticed how frail and broken he looked, and the sinking guilt came up inside her; perhaps that would never fade. But the second his arm went around her shoulders for support, Raven knew she would be able to forgive and forget.
"Do you think things are going to get easier?" He asked her. For once Raven smiled; she had noticed all the perfect vulnerability in this boy, their leader, long ago, and could not wait to help him fix all his problems.
"Even if they don't, I'm here to catch you."
"You're just like an angel."
"No," she said softly. "Please don't say that."
"But only angels save people from themselves," he reminded her.
Raven cradled him into her side, catching him and preventing him from slipping. "Let's go inside and meet the team," she said softly.
Behind them, the cloud stopped pouring rain and a crack of sunlight bathed the very top window on Titan Tower.
Raven knew she was going home.
I'll open up and be your parachute
And I'll never let you down
So open up and be my human angel
And we'll only hit the groundYeah, we're gonna hit the ground
Running.
"Raven!" The living room rang out with cries of her name as she entered the room. She was embraced by all members of the team; all at once she felt the support and love she had missed for the past day flooding back to her.
The idea of wanting to leave the boy holding her hand seemed foolish. Her story told, her scar showed to all of the team and the proper arrangements made, she pulled Robin's arm across her lap and performed the final healing that it would take while all looked on. He flexed it once, then put it around her shoulders.
"Like a parachute to catch me when I fall," he whispered to her. She smiled at him, and while she felt the room quietly taking in the scene, she somehow didn't mind it.
"All in time," she whispered, unable to believe the change in her world in less than an hour, how quickly the story had unfolded.
"What?" Asked a very drowsy Robin, who was discussing something with a laughing Cyborg.
"Nothing," she whispered, turning to talk to Beast Boy. Romantic dynamic or no, Robin or no, at the moment she felt content with the world, with her friends, and with the safety net they had laid for her.
Prepared to take whatever came next running.
She almost felt pure.
"Angel," said Robin's voice in her head. She relaxed her hand against him, and at that exact moment he looked over at her and smiled.
I'll never let you down again, she thought. She knew this was unrealistic; who never let anyone down? But at the same time she felt relaxed, somehow more perfect than she had felt before.
We'll only hit the ground running.
END
(Reviews always appreciated. Thanks for reading- TGR)