Rating: M, because some of this stuff will probably get up there. (K)
Pairings: Multiple, but mainly Raven/Robin, Raven/Red X, and possibly some Raven/Speedy
Genre: We'll be running the gamut, but there will be romance (or the seeds of) in most. Others will include Drama, Tragedy, Humor, etc.
Author's Note: Have some more! This one was just a random teeny thing that didn't feel like a fic on its own, so I never posted it by itself. So, alas, it is shuffled into the Unfinished Business deck, and I hope you like it anyways.
Summary: Robin and Raven discuss frailties, envy, and the down side of super.
Disclaimer: I own only the words on the page.
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"I can't believe you actually did that," Raven chuckled, shaking her head at Robin with eyes slanted merrily. "You just threw yourself under Cinderblock like you thought you were unbreakable. You're the most fragile of us, remember?"
Robin rolled his eyes at her teasing, but by his side on the carpet, his hand twisted a tight fist around his discarded mask, a jolt of resentment and envy spiking through his ribcage at the light reminder. "You say that like you think I don't know. I can't let my limitations hold me back, Rae; it just means I have even more to make up for."
They sat in Raven's bedroom in the small hours of the night, secluded by their low voices and the small pool of light the lone lamp on the bed stand puddled around them. The mood until now had been loose and easy as they engaged in small talk and made jokes and light mockery of each other, but once the conversation had turned to the somewhat hilarious—and slightly alarming—events of their recent bout with the local cement villain, shoulders and tones had begun to tighten and tense.
Now, there was a little pause in which Robin eyed a loose thread on the sleeve of Raven's sweatshirt, and Raven chewed her lip. At last, she sucked in a little breath, and turned to look at him, deciding to confront the small issue before it became too big. "You have less to prove than you think, you know. There's no need to be dangerously reckless when, even without powers, you know you're easily the best of us."
Robin's blue eyes shot up to her face in a moment of questioning surprise, because Raven was never one for polite flattery, but then he looked away, uncomfortable with the honest certainty in her face that she spoke true. "Yeah, well. So you say. Either way, you can't really blame me for a little jealousy now and then. Some of the powers you all have... I imagine it must be an amazing feeling."
Raven drew her outstretched legs up and looped her arms loosely about them, staring at her knees. He said that so easily that she knew he didn't mean to hurt her, and with how blatantly joyous Starfire was to have her abilities, it was an easy enough mistake to make. She told herself this, but the cold spot in her chest still flinched at the words he spoke. "I suppose some of us make it seem that way."
Robin, who had already begun to realize his blunder, tried to backpedal quickly, and turned a warm smile on his closest friend. "Come on, Raven. Isn't there something you love about what you can do?"
She only shrugged.
"Anything?" She didn't move at all, which was worse, and he groped in his mind for some sort of olive branch. "What about flying? I mean... my family might have been called the Flying Graysons, but we were short distance sprinters to your marathon. Moving freely in the air, not having to answer to gravity... maybe I'm missing something, but it really just seems like it'd be awesome, to me."
He wasmissing something. Raven didn't look at him, only rested her chin on her knees, letting her hair slide forward to obscure her profile. He really, truly couldn't understand how flight, the freest metaphor in human imagination, could be anything but wonderful. "Really?"
Raven's shoulders hitched like she'd been hit, the incredulity in his question making her feel... defective. Like she was even farther from human than she'd thought, for being unable to relate. She felt she owed him some explanation. "I don't really like to fly," she murmured into the cotton of her pajama pants. With Robin's sharp ears, she knew he would hear her, and she wasn't sure she could say this at a normal volume, anyways. She always felt like speaking too loudly of these things lent them more weight, more reality.
She could feel him waiting, wondering why. "Before that day… flying was about control, and focus, too much for it to be… fun… But now, after… It reminds me... the feeling of flying... the weightlessness, no ground under your feet to stand on, completely supported by nothing but air... the way my stomach drops, and there's nothing to grip on to... it all reminds me very much of how it felt to come undone. When I stopped being a person and became a doorway. That feeling of powerlessness against something bigger than you that will have its way... it's very much the same."
"Oh," The single syllable was an awkward exhalation, and Robin stared ahead of him, knowing he had really stuck his foot in it this time.
What was he supposed to sayto that? What could possibly be said?
He glanced over at Raven, at the way she had made herself into something small and compact, like she was trying to hide at the same time as trying desperately to keep her own shape. He hesitated, only a moment, and then, hoping it would be welcome, he reached out and took one of her hands that locked around her calves.
Her fingers laced with his, accepting what he had to offer, and he knew there was nothing he could say. And so maybe he didn't have to say anything at all.