The motorcycle came to a halt in the middle of the parking spot normally reserved for the Batmobile, and the engine died as Robin and Raven stood up.
"Master Grayson!"
Looking up the steps that led to the Bat Computer, Robin saw that Alfred was standing there, dressed as properly as ever, yet with a relieved smile on his face. "I'm glad to see you've made it safe and sound." The metal stairs rang out as Alfred descended them, and he approached Robin.
"It's nice to see you- oof!"
Robin's greeting was cut off as Alfred quickly pulled him into a hug. "And I'm glad to see the battles you've fought in Jump City have not left you worse for wear." He let go and straightened Robin's cape. "I haven't kept up with the news there twenty four-seven, too much to do here I'm afraid, but I always checked in when I could after I heard that's where you had decided to continue the crime fighting crusade. You've done an excellent job stopping all the villains there."
"Oh... Yeah..." Robin said quietly, unsure how to react to the praise.
Alfred glanced at him with a single raised brow, then looked behind him at Raven, who was studying him with a wary look on her face. "And this is one of your teammates, I presume... Oh, don't tell me, I know it..."
"Raven." She introduced herself, walking forward and pushing her cloak behind her shoulders so it wasn't wrapped around her. She offered her hand and Alfred shook it after a pausing for a moment to look at her.
Robin looked between the two and cleared his throat. "Yeah, this is Raven. She... Well, she knows about my secret identity, and this whole place." He gestured around to the cave, and up to the ceiling indicating the manor above them. He turned back around to Alfred, who had narrowed his eyes at him. "But she's the only one who knows!" He added quickly, raising his hands. "It's... Kind of a long story." Robin glanced at Raven, who was looking at him curiously, and decided to say, "We don't need to go into it. We can trust her." Raven smiled at him, and he offered a small one in return.
"Very well." Alfred turned back to Raven. "Welcome to the Bat Cave, and to Wayne Manor, Miss Raven."
"Oh, you don't need to call me 'Miss Raven'. Raven's fine." She told him, hoping to keep the tone between them casual. She could sense that he did not approve of her being here, even with Robin's input.
"You will never win that fight." Robin said with a grin, causing her to look at him. "I've been telling him since I was ten years old, and he still calls me 'Master Grayson'."
Alfred straightened his, bringing himself up to full height, letting his chest puff out slightly as he said, "Good manners and respect for customs and courtesies go a long way, Master Grayson." Robin smacked his forehead, and Raven could see Alfred's eyes twinkling mischievously. "Now Miss Raven, let us go upstairs so I may give you a tour of the Manor proper." He gestured with one arm towards the elevator. "There isn't much down here worth looking at. As a matter of fact, I'm sure you would be quite familiar with it if you've lived with Master Grayson in that large tower these past few years."
"It is kind of familiar." She admitted, looking around as she walked forward. "Robin's office is about as well lit as this place. The only difference is that it's much more cramped."
"Hey! I prefer the term 'compartmented'."
Alfred chuckled, and they all got in the elevator together, Alfred standing in the back behind the two superheroes. With a whir and a sudden jolt, the elevator quickly began its ascent. "My apologies." Alfred said as he steadied Raven, who had lost her balance when the elevator began rising. "Should have warned you about that."
The elevator ride wasn't long, but it was longer than Raven was expecting, and she wondered just how far down the cave was from the manor itself. "Who built the Bat Cave?" She asked as they got out of the elevator, exiting into a secret passage that was lined with gray stones on either side of the cramped hallway.
"Myself and Master Wayne. It took well over half a year just to move things down there discretely in order to prepare for the actual construction, and then over a year itself to finish the construction proper. Truthfully, we aren't ever really finished, as there are always more sections being added. The main area you first arrived in acts as the hub, and the other areas branch off from it and form spokes, if you will." Alfred explained. "I suggested many times that Master Wayne disguise the cave renovations as a bunker of some sort, but he never listened. Stubborn one, he is."
Exiting the cramped secret passage, Raven was taken aback by the warmly lit room they had walked into.
"Welcome to the first floor of the west wing. We are in the library. If you ever need to make your way down to the Cave from here, simply press this button here-" Alfred leaned down and touched a cleverly concealed button behind a reading table that blended into the wallpaper, and with a creak, the entrance to the secret passage closed.
"The hinges are hidden in this column?" Raven asked, intrigue in her voice.
"Of course!" Alfred replied with satisfaction. "And the beam of this book case hides the edge of the entrance. There isn't even a draft, so there is no way to know it is there unless it was shown to you. It wasn't built by Master Wayne, however; the passage was there when his great grandparents inherited the manor. If we had gone the other way, we would have ended up in the courtyard, coming out from behind one of the statues that are lined up against the wall." Turning to face the young heroine, Alfred gestured to the room. "We will see the courtyard itself momentarily."
"Why don't we have a library?" Raven asked Robin.
"...Because you're the only who reads?" He responded slowly. "And since you can stick all your books in a magic hat, I've never thought to change one of the rooms into one." He continued, giving her a lopsided grin as he looked at her.
"You may spend as much time in here as you like, Miss Raven." Alfred said. "We have many first editions, that entire shelf there is dedicated to novels imported from all over Europe, that section against the wall is non-fiction, that smaller shelf there has political books from many varied politicians... If you enjoy reading, you will find no shortage of pleasure here."
Alfred led them on a tour of the Manor. They continued on the first floor of the west wing, which had the kitchen and dining area, then moved up to the second floor. "Master Grayson, your old room is here. Raven, I will prepare a room for you on the third floor of the east wing." He said with an incredible amount of finality, titling his head back to look down at her, as though daring her to argue with him.
"Uh, sure. That's fine." She said quietly.
They continued up to the third floor, where there was a conference room and a game room, though unlike the game room at the tower, this one looked seldom used. In fact, it had mostly likely been years since anyone had been in there for any reason other than to clean.
Crossing to the east wing, Alfred showed Raven where her room was, and then they made their way to the second floor. "The master bedroom where Bruce sleeps is on this floor." Alfred explained. "I'm sure it goes without saying, but neither of you need go in there."
Descending to the first floor of the east wing, they were greeted with a quaint living room that had entrance to the Solarium. "This place isn't so bad to relax during the spring and fall." Robin told Raven as the walked outside.
"Indeed. I remember you always brought your homework out here, along with a plate of snacks that I prepared for you."
Raven turned to him and grinned, and Robin rolled his eyes, trying to fight back an embarrassed blush. "Yeah, way back when I was a kid." He tried to excuse.
"And of course, the courtyard is just outside as well. Seeing as it's dark and a little chilly, I shall leave it up to you two to explore it at your leisure." Alfred said. "Shall we go back inside? Tomorrow, you two can begin the search for Master Wayne. After the long drive here, the both of you could do with some rest. Miss Raven, I shall go prepare your room for you."
"Thank you, Alfred." She responded.
As Alfred made his way up to the third floor, Robin and Raven sat on a couch in the living room. "So, what do you think?" Robin asked.
"Hmm." She took a moment to think about her response, observing their surroundings as she did so. "It's... cozy." She opted for. Robin nodded, seemingly satisfied. "But I only get that feeling as a temporary guest. Walking around here, I get a very..." She gestured vaguely with her hand, "Sad feeling, I guess. Lots of empty rooms, and with how remote the Manor is, very few guests that would be here long enough to occupy them."
Robin nodded again, this time more vigorously. "I remember when I first came here. I had a hard time believing that this could be one persons home. It felt like I could explore for hours and never get lost. But the longer I stayed here, the more I realized..." He shrugged. "Just how little there really was. Bruce was so focused crime fighting that when he got back from Wayne Enterprises, he was usually only up here long enough to eat dinner before taking a nap, then going down to the Cave to prepare for the night. I was almost always by myself in the afternoons- but back when I first started, I didn't really care. I was just as eager to go out and stop criminals as Bruce was."
Raven pursed her lips. "I guess that aspect of you hasn't changed." She said slowly.
Thankfully, Robin didn't take it the wrong way. "No, it hasn't. But I never struggled with schoolwork, even after becoming Robin, and when things starting breaking down between me and Batman- What?" He asked as he saw Raven smiling at him.
"Nothing." She said with a dismissive hand wave. "I've just never heard you talk from the perspective of Richard Grayson before." She thought to herself. "So, do I get to see the boxcar you had for a bed?" She asked to distract him.
"Ha! I never had a bed like that. But if you really want to see my room, you'll be disappointed. I bet they boxed everything up after I left and it was clear I wasn't coming back." Robin stood up and led the way back to his old room.
Though they had stopped here earlier, they hadn't gotten inside, and Raven could feel slight anticipation in her chest as she walked inside.
"Looks like you were right." She remarked as she looked around. "They took everything out and made it into another guest room."
A dresser, a bedside table, and a lamp were all that remained inside. The sheets were neatly folded on the bed, and the closet door was open, but otherwise there was nothing of note inside.
"Wonder what they did with my old comic books..." Robin wondered aloud.
"They are safely stored on the third floor."
Both of them jumped at the sound of Alfred's voice, and quickly spun around to the door.
"Miss Raven, your room is ready upstairs."
Exhaling, Raven nodded and made for the door. "Thank you, Alfred." She turned at the door, placing one hand on the frame and looking at Robin from the side. "See you in the morning."
"Yeah-" She briskly walked away, "Goodnight." Robin tilted his head and gave a confused look at the space she had just occupied, but didn't say anything else.
"Ahem."
Robin looked over to Alfred, who had stepped into his room. "Yes?"
"I don't wish to presume, Master Grayson, but earlier you said she was the only one who knew the truth about you." Alfred recounted. Robin nodded, and he continued. "Does she know because the two of you are dating?"
"What!?" Robin stood up suddenly and closed the door, glancing down the hallway to make sure Raven had actually left before closing the door as he went back into his room. "Why would you say that?" He asked.
Alfred frowned at him. "There is nothing wrong with-"
"We're not dating!" Robin interjected.
Silence filled the air between them, and after a moment Robin sighed. "It's a long story, like I said earlier." Alfred nodded slowly. "But she's just a friend. I've never even thought about her that way."
"If you say so. Please, forgive my assumption. It wasn't my desire to make you uncomfortable." Alfred explained. "But I'm sure you can see things from my perspective."
Robin swallowed, hoping his ears weren't as red as they felt. "Yeah... I guess so. Showing up with a girl I've been living with who knows my secret identity... I can see how you made that leap." Robin muttered, more to reassure himself than to agree with Alfred. "Still. She's here as backup, in case our search for Batman proves to be more dangerous than we think it is. She's probably the strongest fighter on our team, ability wise." Robin explained, feeling a little bit of guilt at referring to Raven as 'backup' when he'd invited her here in the first place.
"In that case, I shall go retrieve your belongings from your motorcycle down in the cave. Excuse me."
The door opened and closed with a quiet click, and Robin sat on the bed, staring up at the ceiling as he thought back to that day so long ago, when Raven had told him about how she'd come to learn his identity...
"Can you come up to the roof?"
Robin frowned at the message flashing on his communicator, before responding with a quick, "Yes." and making his way down the hall from his room to the stairway.
He was glad that he wasn't tired, because it was late, close to midnight, and the fact that it was nearly winter made itself known as he opened the door to the rooftop. He shivered, but a part of him welcomed the sudden change in his surroundings. He'd been sitting in his stuffy room for the last few hours, doing nothing.
He saw Raven at the far end of the rooftop, standing beneath the crescent moon amidst a sky full of stars, her cloak fluttering in the wind.
Robin closed the distance between them, until he was standing a few feet behind her. "What's wrong?" He asked. She hadn't reacted to his approach, but at the sound of his voice, she lifted her head slowly, raising her hands to pull her hood down before she turned around. The worried look in her eyes as they flicked back and forth between his drew another step forward from him, and he raised a hand in the space between them. "Raven?"
"I had to tell you." She spoke suddenly, looking away and pushing past him, stopping once she got a few feet past him and tapping her foot on the ground.
Something he'd picked up from being around her so often was that when Raven was calm and collected, she could be as still as a statue, but whenever she was nervous about anything, that energy came out of her and she couldn't sit still no matter what until whatever it was that was troubling her had been dealt with.
"Tell me what?" He asked, taking a step towards her.
"I didn't want you to find out some other way." She turned on him suddenly, her hands clenching into fists at her sides. "I didn't mean to. But I thought I might slip up, or make a mistake and you'd-"
"Raven, calm down." He put his hands on her shoulders. "Deep breaths. What's going on? You're worrying me."
She took a few deep, shuddering breaths, then raised a hand and gently pushed his hands off her shoulders. "I saw-" She hesitated, eyes glancing up at him nervously. "The other day, I saw it. You. When I went into your mind."
Robin stiffened. "When I was poisoned by Slade's mask?" He asked, and she nodded. "What do you mean you saw 'me'?"
She grit her teeth so hard Robin could hear it over the wind, and he was about to reach out and touch her again when she answered, "When I went into your mind, I-I didn't mean to, but I saw your memories. Well, it was more like I felt them, but it's hard to tell the difference." Robin's eyes widened, but she continued. "And I keep feeling them whenever I close my eyes, like they're my emotions now. I felt everything you felt, your pain and anger and joy... I'm sorry." She murmured her apology so quietly he almost missed it. "I promise I didn't mean to. But I've almost called you Richard three times in as many days, and I was afraid that if I didn't tell you, I'd-"
"Raven, stop. I'm not mad at you." He raised a hand to cut her off, and her eyes widened at his response.
"You're not?" She asked disbelievingly.
Robin shook his head. "I know how much you prefer to keep things about yourself secret, Raven, so I know you'd never go poking around someone's personal thoughts without their permission."
"But I didn't have permission! Now I-"
"And now you're telling me about it." He interrupted again. "And I can tell by how much it bothers you that you'd take it back if you could. But I trust you, and I know you'd never tell anyone else what you saw without asking me first."
He saw Raven's shoulders relax slightly, and took the opportunity to move to the edge of the roof. He sat down, letting his legs dangle over the edge, and looked back at Raven while patting the spot beside him. When she did, she sat a little closer to him than she normally would have, but he brushed it off as her trying to stay warm in the face of the cold wind. "What all did you see?" He asked gently, looking out to the horizon.
Raven swallowed, turning her head up to look at the moon. The wind pushed her hair back, and she brought her cloak around her torso to act as a makeshift blanket. "I didn't see much from when you were a kid. A few memories of the circus and your friends, but the day your parents-" She gasped, her hands covering her mouth because even at the mention of the event she could feel the sorrow it still caused Robin, before she exhaled and continued, "And after that day, when you first met Bruce, then Batman, and the day you took up the oath of crime fighter. I saw many of your fights against the criminals in Gotham... and when you and Batman first started arguing about your role as his partner. I saw how those arguments got worse and worse, before you finally told him you were leaving and came to Jump City." She took a breath, looking down from the sky to face him. "And I saw a lot of the events since then, but I've been there for most of them." She tried to muster a smile to finish lightly, but he didn't respond.
The wind was the only noise heard as Raven waited for a response. Even as she spoke, he didn't turn to look at her, but she could feel the apprehension with him.
"I never thought things would've gone down the way they had." He said after so long a silence that Raven was about to speak his name again. "I thought we were partners, but he..." Robin growled, his hands clenching at the rooftops edge. "He called me his sidekick. Like we weren't equals." Robin scoffed. "I told him more than once that I took down just as many thugs as he did, that I could go places he couldn't because I was just a kid, but things just got worse instead of better as I got older. Then he started ordering me to stay behind, had Alfred hold me back so I couldn't go patrolling with him..."
"What do you mean, 'stay here'? I have to go out and help!"
"You don't have to do anything, Robin. You're a child, and you'll do as you're told!"
The voices of Robin's memories came to Raven's mind, and she clamped her hands over her ears in a vain attempt to shut them out.
"Raven?" Robin asked in slight alarm.
"I know. I remember- I mean, I saw what you remember... If that makes sense."
"You almost got yourself killed! Why did you move before I told you!?"
"I almost get killed every night! In case you forgot, YOU'RE the one who brought ME out here! To stop these criminals before someone else gets hurt!"
"I brought you out here to follow orders, not so you could blindly jump in front of a gun!"
Once more, the echoes of memories past came forward, and Raven held her breath as it the intensity of the feelings brought with it washed over her. For a moment, she held still, then let her breath out over several seconds.
"You okay?" Robin asked.
"Yeah, it's just-" She looked at him, then glanced away. "Well, you know better than me. You lived it."
"Hmph." He nodded in agreement. "I was happy at first." He said after a moment.
"Really? This is mine?"
"It is. Wear it well. If all you're doing is going out there and beating criminals up, you're not being a symbol. That-" A gloved hand tapped the R on his chest, "-Is a symbol of hope."
"But after a while, Bruce started getting angrier any time I would make even a small mistake, started training me harder, but let me go out less and less, to the point I had to sneak out and go places I knew criminals congregated and so that I could feel like I was actually making a difference."
Raven squared her shoulders. "I know what you're talking about, but-" She hesitated, looking up at the night sky once more. "Don't you think he was worried about putting a kid in harms way? That he was worried about your safety, not your performance?" She asked quietly.
"Looking back, I'm sure that was part of it." He admitted. "But- He was the one who agreed to train me, he was the one who told me I could make a difference, that I could give people hope, that if I went out and fought, no one would ever feel as powerless as I did when-" His speech got faster and more frantic, but he stopped suddenly. "Like I did the day my parents trapeze wires got sabotaged and they died." He finished quietly. Raven put a hand on his shoulder, but he didn't react.
"And I don't care if it put me in danger or not. I lost everything the day my family died. If Bruce had adopted me but never told me he was Batman, never trained me to fight criminals, I'd be depressed and wouldn't have any purpose in life. Stopping criminals was the only reason I had to go on." He stated resolutely.
"But you have us now, Robin. There's more to life than your crusade." She said suddenly, ears ringing as she wondered what had spurred her to say that. In most circumstances, she would've ended the conversation long ago, but right now, she was determined to make Robin feel better.
Silence fell between them again as Robin pursed his lips. "I still wear this mask." He said quietly. "After I lost my parents, I thought I had nothing. I looked up to Bruce, and for a little while, thought he could be a father figure to me, but..." He shook his head. "He let me down. I haven't told anyone my real name, or shown you my face, because I don't want to be let down by you, too."
Raven swallowed, unsure how to respond to that.
"I'm sorry, Raven. I said I trust you, and I do, I trust all of you, but I wasn't even planning on teaming up with everyone when I first came here, remember? If we hadn't been called together because the alien tech had gotten in the hands of criminals, I'd be on my own right now. The only thing I know for sure is that crime will never stop, and neither can I. But there's no guarantee we'll be together forever, and when that day comes, I'll be on my own again. Just me versus them. It's all I have left. I have to stop them, because if I don't, some other kid could lose his parents without any warning, and I don't want anyone to feel the pain I had to feel that day."
"Do you really think that?" Raven asked, sorrow in her voice. "That one day, we'll just burn bridges and never see each other again? None of us are going anywhere."
"Raven..." He turned to her, and Raven's heart stopped as she saw a single tear fall out from under his mask. "I thought the same thing before my parents died."
She leaned forward automatically then, surprising him as much as she surprised herself as her arms moved to encircle him while she rested her chin on his shoulder.
In that moment Raven realized why she was so determined to help him, why she didn't want him to be angry at her for learning about his past, why she of all people was feeling everything so intently in that moment, when she normally never let anything through the emotional shields that had taken her years to build up.
"I love you, Richard." She thought as she felt his arms raise and return the embrace. "And I won't leave you alone. I'll be by your side, no matter what. I won't let you carry that sorrow for the rest of your life."