**CW: suicidal reference/ideation, slurs, needles, and all of the feels.**

Robin flinched when a titanium hand slammed on his desk. Then he grinned.

"Hey, Victor. Are these the new-?"

"Did you booby trap Gar's locker?" Victor growled.

Robin frowned. "He put syrup in my bag. Thousands of dollars-!"

"He's allergic to fish."

For a moment, Robin only stared at Victor, waiting for him to give away the bluff. Victor glared back. Robin's stomach sank, and he bolted for the door.

Robin only remembered running so fast once before in his life. He wasn't fast enough to save lives that day, though. Please let today be different, please, please, please! He slammed against the front office desk.

"Did I kill Garfield?" He nearly screamed.

The secretary, unable to comprehend, asked him to repeat himself.

"Garfield Logan," panted Robin. "I set a trap in his locker to dump garbage on him. I didn't know he's allergic. Is he okay?"

The secretary stood up and ushered him behind her desk and into a new room.

"Have a seat," she said. "Someone will speak to you shortly."

Robin did sit down. This was good, right? No one was rushing or accusing him. Oh, man, someone was bound to call his sponsor, though. Damn this scholarship curse! He was so sure he would be the first recipient to finish a month. He only needed to keep his nose clean until Thursday. No way would the detective keep a murderer in his house. Was it too late to run away? He had just confessed, so probably. Maybe he could get to his secret spot. That was the plan if he hadn't gotten the scholarship anyway. He just had to slip away between the manor and the orphanage. No one would notice he was even missing. His sponsor would know the orphanage had him, and the orphanage would be sure of the opposite. Weeks would pass -months!- before they spoke. It'd be too late by then to catch him. Besides, it wasn't like he was leaving friends behind now. He'd never been close to Garfield or Kori. He understood Rachel, but that was superficial at best. And Victor was pissed, rightfully so. That hurt the most, really.

A middle-aged woman entered the room and knelt in front of him. She was talking, right? His ears rang over a mess of unintelligible warbling. He wanted to cry. He never wanted to cry. Too much pressure. He'd really messed up. Something pressed on his shoulder.

"Grayson, you need to breathe."

He did. The ringing stopped. Had he been holding his breath the whole time? When did he get on the floor? When did an EMT get here? He sat up and took several deep, steady breaths.

"Good, good. You're doing fine," the responder said. Then he looked to the principal. "They should both head in. We need to monitor Logan in case of a biphasic reaction, and this one needs psychiatric treatment. And a nap."

Agreed, thought Robin. On the nap, at least, not the psychiatric thing. His panic attacks never stopped being exhausting.

"It's okay, I got a plan."

A hand gripped his upper arm. "What plan?" Asked the principal.

Oops. Wasn't supposed to say that out loud.

"I'll be fine," he said weakly. "I'll make it right."

"Okay, buddy," the responder said, helping Robin to his feet, "you get to come with us. Call their parents and send them to Santa Laurena's."

"I'll get 'em myself. Lemme go."

Again, the principal gripped his arms tightly. "Do you want to lose your seat here?" She asked firmly. Robin shook his head. "Then you need to go to the hospital and sort this out. We need you to be healthy, physically and mentally. Understand?"

Robin's mouth was dry, but he managed a "Yes, Ma'am."

That was it, then, he thought as he was led outside. His mental health was too degraded to stay, and that meant he was useless to his sponsor, and that meant he was doomed to a life of petty theft and common burglary and tight chest again. Breathe. Breathe. At least for a while.

Inside the ambulance, a woman desperately warned Garfield against taking the ventilator off. His response was to scream bloody murder and cover his head with his arms.

"Woah, woah, Jane," the man with Robin warned. "Stop. Hey, Gar, how you holding up there?"

He growled at the man.

"She's new. She doesn't know, okay? Here, you hold the mask."

Robin climbed up behind the man as he pulled the ventilator from Jane and passed it to Garfield. The brunette pressed it to his face, the straps dangling uselessly against his cheeks.

"You gotta know how to handle the beast, Jane," the man said. "He has rules."

"Kids don't call the shots here, Andrew," Jane growled, shifting to the driver's seat.

Garfield lowered the mask and called "frequent flier" before putting it back on and focusing on breathing. Andrew made sure the siren was off as she pulled into traffic.

Then Garfield noticed Robin hiding in the corner.

"Hey," he said, surprisingly cheerful. "You followed me."

"'Frequent flier?'" Robin repeated.

"It's usually anchovies," Garfield said, pulling down the mask only to have Andrew replace it. "Pizza dudes don't wash their hands. People hear 'seafood' and think we mean 'shellfish.' It's not the same."

"Seriously, Gar, you need to keep this on in case the epipen wears off," warned Andrew.

Garfield giggled. "It makes me sound like Master Pith. 'Duke, I'm your father.'"

"The line is 'No, I am your father, Duke,'" said Andrew.

"It is not! I've seen that movie a zillion times!"

Robin grinned weakly. "Well, I'm glad you're not dying."

"Pshaw! I'm never gonna die, dude."

"It's gonna take more than a little fish to take our Beast Boy down," Andrew agreed. "Hey, what's your weird animal news today, buddy?"

"Oh, this is Robin," said Garfield, waving to the other passenger, "so I was looking at birds. And the robin will eat old fruits on purpose to get drunk in the fall. Who knew?"

Andrew laughed. "Word of advice, though: don't do that. It'll just make you sick."

"Yeah, that's what Mom said, too."

"How do you know all this stuff?" Robin asked, genuinely surprised.

Garfield shrugged. "I like animals, dude. Except fish. I kind of got overruled on fish."

Robin nodded. "Sorry for that. I didn't-."

"You didn't know," Garfield said. "You don't know much about me, and that's my fault. Actually, me and Vic talked about it, and I need to apologize to you."

"How do you figure?"

"I was a jerk. There's no excuse for that. You said one thing, and my brain heard something else. So. I'm sorry for blaming you. And wrecking your stuff. And deadnaming you."

"Timeout," said Andrew. "Dude, you don't deadname anyone ever."

"I thought he called me a retard."

Robin spat, "Why would I call you… that?"

"Because I'm autistic," said Garfield.

Robin suddenly realized how many very sharp tools there were around him. What kind of human garbage dumps trash on an autistic kid? How was that not obvious? He only caught a few words of what Garfield said after that.

I was a jerk. Not okay. Wasn't your fault.

But it was his fault. He never stopped to think that Garfield was dealing with his own issues. He was too worried about his problems. The stress of impressing his sponsor, trying to stay friends with Victor, the need to do better than picking pockets, to make his parents proud. Everything was broken now. Chest tightening again. Too exhausting. He didn't so much feel the needle as he heard Garfield asking what it was for.

"Sedative," said Andrew as Robin leaned into him. "He's gonna have an aneurysm if he doesn't calm down."

"Will he be okay?"

"Not if his brain explodes."

"That'd be cool," thought Robin, shutting his eyes.

The next time he opened them, his breath hitched, and he closed them again. White walls, soft bed, padded edges on a table? This was bad.

"You're awake."

And now, it was worse. Robin sighed and rolled onto his back. He stared at the ceiling to avoid eye-contact with his sponsor. There was no mistaking that firm, gruff voice or the carefully curated woodsy cologne he always wore.

"Excellent work as always, Sir.

A book shut loudly. "I don't think you're aware of how serious this is."

"I almost killed someone," said Robin. "I'm aware."

"That- No. Robin. You mentioned a 'plan' to the principal and told first responders it would be 'cool' if your head exploded."

"Huh," said Robin. "I talk too much when I'm stressed."

"You're on suicide watch."

Here, Robin jolted up and stared at his sponsor, a well-groomed man with black hair and a sculpted body from exercise. With the exception of his broad shoulders, the man could easily have passed for Robin's father- or maybe an older brother?- down to having the same shockingly blue eyes and cold stare over a pair of reading glasses. Neither spoke for a long time.

"This would be a good time to explain yourself," said the sponsor.

Robin bit his lip then said, "I can't lose this scholarship."

"Do you want it?"

"I need this."

"But do you want it?"

Robin's grip tightened on his blanket. Stop shaking. Face hurting. Don't cry. You're not five anymore. Pressure from a hand on his back broke that and Robin started sobbing. The hand rubbed his shoulders as he sputtered.

"What I want is to stop hurting. It sucks! And, for a minute, I had it. I had friends! I wasn't scared of letting people down, but then I did. I let that mask slip for one second, and I hurt Garfield. I broke the contract."

"The contract," the man said gently, folding his glasses and setting them aside, "says that you receive my support until you are no longer enrolled in Jump City Preparatory High School. The two of you each earned a warning for bullying. You haven't been expelled."

"I'm not well enough," said Robin, wiping his face in the blankets.

"I came back from it." Robin stared at him, and he explained, "I had everything ready. Time, location, method, you name it. I even planned a distraction so no one would find me too fast."

"What stopped you?"

"I got scared. That microsecond of 'I want to live' saved me. Now, whenever I'm feeling like I'm slipping again, I go back there and remind myself that… I'm scared, and I want to live."

Robin let the man hug him. This was… nice. It was, what, nine years since he'd had a sincere hug? Pushing away was so much easier, but… more of this.

"I wanna stay with my friends," he whimpered.

The man pulled back and locked eyes with Robin.

"Then stand up for yourself," he said, "and be ready to fight for it."