Robin woke slowly, taking in his surroundings. Still wrapped in Superboy's arms on the camp cot, he saw the small fire had gone out on the cave floor and there was a new chill in the air. A clean winter crispness that invited laughter and play. Forcibly extricating himself from Superboy's radiant solar warmth in the sleeping bag, Robin set his feet on the floor of the cave, feeling the cold grip his toes like a tease. He briefly stretched, his long lean naked body reaching out to take in the new day, entirely unashamed and full of new life.

Conner stirred under the quilted down of the sleeping bag..

"Tim?" Superboy asked, briefly questioning in his fleeing sleep-state.

"Yeah Conner?

"Just checking... For a moment I thought it might have been a dream."

Superboy had dreamt of making Robin his since the day they met; and for all the fantasies that he had entertained, he had never dared to dream that they would come to pass. Though he had always wanted to make love to "his" Bird-Boy, his lust was always secondary to wanting to act on his love. Having now done just that, waking the following morning to see that it was not just a dream, his heart was full to bursting and he did not quite know where to go from here. But he would go anywhere with his Robin.

"Are you ready to come back with me?" Robin asked, a slight worry in his voice. Superboy's absence had taken it's toll on Robin, even if he did know the reason for it.

"I never wanted to run away, Tim." Conner said, his voice trying out the name again, feeling the newness of it like touching a favorite gift on Yule morning.

"Its just that I never had a family and I envied the love of yours. I felt that falling in love with you had damaged what you had. "

"Konner, I never felt I had to choose between you and my family. I can't speak for Nightwing and what he did. I can only say it will never happen again." The last spoken with a fleeting gleam of steel in the bright blue eyes. It was not so much as a threat as it was a promise of hazard.

"Rob, I know that he loves you and I always liked and respected him. Why else could I have stood there and taken his abuse, knowing what he thinks of me, and falsely. If it were any other man I would have..."

"I know." Robin said in a quiet monotone. "But also our Teammates know, Batman knows, Superman knows, and we have no need to hide in a shame that we do not feel and have not earned. So, please Konner, come back to the Team, back to the Mountain, back to your family... back to me." Robin's voice drifts away in his last statement like a plea as he reaches his hand toward Superboy expectantly.

"I'm never leaving you again. I can't, you know that. But I was wrong and I let you carry a burden alone when I should have shared it with you. Forgive me."

With a strength that belied his smaller stature, Robin took Superboy's hand and pulled him into his arms and lips.

"Let's go, Konner."

The two young heroes dressed, bundling themselves again the winter chill they would face outside the cave. Walking out, still holding one another's hand, the young lovers looked out upon a forest floor covered with a new carpet of crystal white snow that had fallen fresh in the night. It was clean, pure, and bright like their hearts. Superboy never looked back on his cave, where he had finally tried to hide from the world. Everything he needed or wanted was in his heart and personified by the smaller hand held gently in his. They walked across the fresh snow, leaving their footprints like a fresh new world that they would leave their marks upon.

Robin touched a finger to his ear, activating his communicator.

"Aqualad, this is Robin... We're coming home." His voice carrying tones of hope and peace in his heart.

Robin B-20... Superboy B-04

Stepping through the Zeta-tube, the boys were greeted by Kaldhur, usually stoic, but now with a look of relief on his normally well composed face. He gathered both his friends and Teammates in a deep silent embrace, finally feeling as things were right for the first time since Robin's coma. He walked with them through the cave headquarters they called home when Robin asked:

"Where is everyone?" Robin asked and Superboy's eyes reiterated.

With the portentious voice that Aqualad reserved for weighty matters he responded:

"They are away on other matters and will be home later."

As he walked with his friends through the halls of their home, the came into the quiet and empty common room... to find Nightwing in a side chair waiting.

But this wasn't Nightwing. No signature black and blue uniform. He wore old civilian clothes, badly draped over a hunched form, several days growth darkening the otherwise handsome face. In shock, Robin turned toward Kaldhur, but he had disappeared, leaving the lovers to this matter. A slight growl rumbled from Superboy's chest and his hands clenched in remembered fury, one that Robin did not try to quell. The pain of betrayal was still quite fresh.

Slow and cautious, like an old and broken man, Nightwing... Dick Grayson forced himself out of the chair and set his eyes on his younger brother and his boyfriend.

"Before anything else, please let me speak." Dick said with a humbled voice. "Else" hung in the air like he was Damocles waiting for the sword's fall and had accepted it.

With a voice that began haltingly and grew more confident, having accepted what he would say, Dick continued.

"I have wronged and betrayed you both. I want to ask... beg... for your forgiveness, but I will have to earn it. Explanations are meaningless next to what I have done to you two, but they are necessary."

Dick's throat pulsed as he gulped down his guilt and shame like a bitter pill.

"Konner, I struck you unjustly and out of ignorance and fear and I am so very sorry. I love my brother, not as a replacement for the one I lost, but entirely in his own right. In my protectiveness I falsely imagined you having coerced Tim and... I imagined you being something other than you are. Something we would both loathe. I called both of you perverts, and I wish I could take that word back, but I cannot. Batman was right Tim, we have each lost so much that I have no right to criticise when one of us finds love and happiness. But that is not the "why."

Guilt and shame etched his face like a judgement imposed on himself.

"I... I was jealous." The words hung in the air in admission.

"I was in love when I was younger, your age. I would have given anything to be with him. But I bought into all the lies and falsehoods that people spew and felt filthy for loving another boy. I put it out of my mind and convinced myself that it was wrong. I never had half the courage that either of you have shown. I spent my years trying to be something I am not, and earned the lonliness that I endured."

Robin's eyes narrowed in concentration and understanding.

"Dick, did you ever tell him? Tell Wally?"

Nightwing's face spasmed as though he had been slapped. He should not have been surprised that Robin had deduced it. Dick was Batman's strongest adopted son and protege, but Tim was truly the heir to his legacy of "The Detective."

"No." Nightwing hung his head further, failure and grief weighing him down further.

"Maybe it's time." Robin said with sympathy and understanding.

Conner stood still, never speaking, his hands held stiff at his sides shaking. He walked up to Nightwing and Dick looked up resolved... awaiting the blow he had earned. Superboy reached his hand out and pulled Nightwing into his strong arms, still shaking with conflicting emotions. Dick finally broke down and sobbed into Superboy's shoulder, his voice trembling the words "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

It was time they all had healed.