Baby Fat

Litt

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Somewhere between Halloween and the end of the world, he had grown up. During the dark of denial and the oddness of readjusting to life without fire, she had noted things, oblique changes, but she hadn't acknowledged the new man until he had announced that he was leaving.

Here were the defined arms of many (self-inflicted) battles. Here was the closed aura of a fallen soldier who knows.

She couldn't help but think she'd never met him before and would therefore not be wrong in calling him a stranger. A new name, a new identity: someone she didn't know, someone she had been introduced to too late.

Here was the long hair of another identity, of one without faults or, possibly, too many to fear anything else.

She has changed as well: she shows it now, can't find it within her power to pull the awe from her face.

His face has been altered so much: frown lines are deeper where his laugh lines had darkened, the softness of his childhood—if one called it that—was gone to stretch angularly—firmly—across high cheek bones and sculptured muscle. Faintly, she wonders what had melted his baby fat away and how fast it had gone. When? Why hadn't she noticed before—at all?

That suddenly-new face, those solemn lips, cautious shoulders, every day…she should've noticed. She should've.

He still answers her mental call with his bright spark of psychic warmth; she sighs, not sure if she is disappointed or relieved that this, at least, is still the same.

His mask has changed; his clothes are different.

She still doesn't know what color his eyes are; she probably won't be able to fit his new uniform.

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AN: Short and scribbled on a napkin during lunch one day, it is a bit rough and a bit vague, but I thought I'd post it here anyway, just for kicks. Robin's inevitable retirement always intrigued me and after How Long Is Forever aired I wondered how the show would introduce his other ego.