Rating: PG13
Pairing: None. Raven/Robin bonding, if anything.
Disclaimer: I don't own Teen Titans, but if everything goes according to plan and I follow the Evil Overlord List… +eeeeviiil grin+
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"Dangerous Promises"
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Raven had been sixteen for two and a half weeks now.
Despite that, in terms of numbers, she was still young and growing up, Raven hadn't been a child for ages. She'd grown up long ago, in order to survive. She had seen more, done more, and had more tortures and regrets than most people in their forties. Robin thought she'd get along all too well with Batman.
In the past seventeen days, things had been a sickening parody of business as usual, everyone pretending worth their ass that Raven's sixteenth had been as sweet as every cliché and tradition dictated. They pretended Slade hadn't returned, and for Beastboy, Starfire and Cyborg, it was almost a simple thing. For the larger part of the horrible ordeal, they had been locked in stasis, frozen in time by Raven herself. For the three of them, it could almost, nearly be waved away as some sort of disturbing nightmare, terrifying but unreal and forgettable.
For Raven and Robin, that day would haunt their footsteps for as long as they lived and breathed. Those interminable hours stretched into that frozen moment was emblazoned brightly on the back of their eyelids, ready to spring and pounce and be relived in the space of each blink.
But they pretended as well, Robin as cheery and spry and melodramatically clichéd as ever, though he felt as if he tiptoed across a tightrope so that those hawk-watchful gazes wouldn't think he'd fallen into his Slade-obsessed rut again, and the anxiety of that slow walk made him keep forcing his heart down from his throat. He had been a trapeze artist; the Flying Graysons weren't meant for tightropes.
And Raven, Raven was the Greatest Pretender of them all. She behaved as if her birthday had never even happened, as wry and acerbically snarky as ever, voice unflinchingly deadpan and her face as expressionless as smooth stone. But even more than Robin worried about worrying the others, he worried about Raven, and watched her just as closely as the other Titans watched him, but much more discreetly and observantly. And he saw her overdoing it.
She pretended to be unaffected. She pretended to make the same old wry jokes and sarcastic comments, but she made them too often and tried too hard to pick on Beastboy. She pretended to be absorbed in her books like always, but he watched her eyes never move, her fingers never turn a page, her hands always open to the very middle of the book. She tugged at the crisp ends of her hair when she thought no one was paying any attention, reassuring herself that it was still cut at her chin, that it hadn't grown rapidly to her waist while she wasn't watching.
And he knew that she slept very little, watched purple smudges form under her eyes like ugly bruises. He knew she meditated more than she needed to, saw the unnatural stillness in her body, the too-tightly controlled economy of movement she observed. She was too unnatural, completely unrelaxed, taut and tight and coiled like a spring that would snap at the slightest application of pressure.
And though he worried, he didn't dare say a thing. He was terrified that if he placed a hand on her shoulder in sympathy, she would snap like fragile spun glass under the weight of his fingers, that if he spoke words of comfort in her direction, the sonic vibrations would shatter her all to pieces that he would never be able to repair.
And he waited to see if she could sense his eyes on her. He watched to see if she could feel him worrying about her. He worried he would wait too long and miss that slim window of opportunity to help her.
So he watched, and he worried, and he waited. Because what else could he do?
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Robin lay in bed, tangled in his sheets, hovering in that hazy state between sleep and wakefulness. His legs felt confined and too warm in his sweats and the tangles of his sheet, but his bare torso was too cold and he couldn't seem to wake up enough to pull the sheet over his chest. The mask itched on his face, but with Slade resurrected and at large, it was his one concession to paranoia. Expect the unexpected and always be ready to fight for his life.
As if in echo of his muddled, drowsing thoughts, the quiet hush of his door—his locked door—sliding open snapped his eyes open behind the opaque white lenses of his mask, and he fought to keep himself from tensing and his breathing deep and even. It wouldn't do to alert his intruder to the fact that he was aware of them.
Was it Slade? One of Slade's minions? What if it wasn't and it was just some other criminal seeking a trophy from Titan's Tower, or one of their dangerous toys, like Red X had done? Only he, Raven and Cyborg knew the locking-override codes to the doors. Had someone hacked the Tower mainframe again? Slade had done so before. But then again, he'd only been able because Terra had handed him the security codes and encryption strings. Had someone else betrayed them?
A near-silent footstep treaded hesitantly over the threshold of his door, and Robin released enough tension to allow his left hand to creep down into the crack between his mattress and the wall, fingers curling slowly around the cold metal of his Asp1.
Four more treads of quietly padding feet, stopping short at the foot of his bed; a quiet, shaky drawing of breath, the soft, moist sound of a tongue wetting dry lips. His grip tightened around the Asp(1), prepared to spring up ready for violence at the intruder's next move.
"Robin? Are… are you awake?"
The muted, quavering voice was low and cracking, as if it hadn't been used in ages, or as if it hadn't been meant to be used. Robin jolted in surprise, releasing the Asp without another thought and pushing himself up on his palms, twisting at the waist to stare into the dark at the end of the mattress, where he could just make out a dim, delicate and full-figured silhouette. "Raven?" He asked in a stunned stage whisper, half-wondering if he was really awake.
He knew he wasn't dreaming her up when she let out the breath she'd been holding in a gusty, shuddering, whoosh as if she were both relieved and unsettled to find him alert after all. She stepped forward again, stopped, hesitating. "I'm sorry—I… I just—" She cut herself off short.
"Raven, what's wrong? Tell me." He was confused and concerned, but mostly concerned. Perhaps his watching, waiting and worrying hadn't been in vain after all. Could he fix her before she broke jaggedly in half? Could he weld her together, erase the spider-cracks in her flesh where Slade had laid hands on her? He hoped she would let him try.
Another three soft footsteps, these hurried and rash, as if she had to move her feet before she could talk herself out of it, and then a sudden dip at the mattress beside him as it accommodated her weight. He reached out, not quite blindly now she was closer and he could make out the vague plain of her forehead, the curve of her cheek, the rounded point of her chin.
Before his hand could land on the indistinct target of her shoulder, the mattress dipped more and creaked beneath her movement, and she shocked him as she crawled onto the bed and scooted next to him, lying down and stretching out with an inch of air separating them. His hand thumped to the mattress in his surprise, leaving him leaning over her with a hand planted to either side of her inert body, as if he meant to trap her there without actually touching her.
She wrapped a small, slender-fingered hand around his left wrist, her skin cold against his. "I couldn't stop seeing him in the shadows in my room." She made a strangled, gurgling sound he thought might've been intended as a laugh. "Who'd have ever thought, me, jumping at shades and afraid to be alone in the dark." The self-mocking cynicism was a defense mechanism, what would have been a show of bravado for anyone else. She had never liked to acknowledge her fear, and he suddenly realized she had been trying not to come to him like this for the past two and a half weeks.
He was impressed at how she had managed to hold out for so long. Raven was a very proud person, aside from being trained at denying emotion of every kind and forever building walls around herself to protect against weakness. She was aloof because she had to be, and the necessity had shaped her personality. She was naturally uncomfortable with close physical contact, hardly even physically interacted with the other Titans, to whom she actually had a degree of trust in, and he knew that when Slade had placed his hands on her, burning through the protection of her indifference and clothing alike, drawing out her birthmarks, that it had been a violation, a rape of her personal space.
If he hadn't loathed Slade with a passion before, he would happily see him slowly tortured and bled to death now. He had left Raven vulnerable, shaken her snowglobe world and laid her bare and Robin didn't know if she would ever completely recover.
Robin swallowed around a hard, salty lump that had suddenly formed in his throat and lay back on his side, shifting his hand so that it was gripping hers. She wouldn't ask, she'd never beg or implore him, but the unspoken plea was in the silence locked behind her lips and the rigid line of her spine. "Stay in here tonight, Raven. I'll keep watch while you sleep."
She didn't say thank you, or protest that he needed sleep too, she just nodded gravely, the tensions flowing away from her and leaving her weak and trembling. Surprising him again, she closed the short gap between them and huddled against him, her face pressed over his heart. She kept a tight grip on his hand, her other arm pressed between them. Looping his right arm across her shoulders, he stroked the short, thick hair at the nape of her neck, a comforting gesture his mother had done for him when he'd had nightmares as a small child.
I failed you when he was there to hurt you, Raven, but I won't fail you now. If nothing else, I can comfort you without making you ask for it, and maybe I can help heal some of the damage I couldn't stop him from inflicting. I'll hold you safe from the shadows forever if it takes that to make it up to you.
A guilty, sorrowful tightness that had been constricting his chest for seventeen days loosened a little as she fell asleep in his arms, trusting in him to keep the shadows from scorching her flesh in the darkness while she let down her guard enough to begin repairing herself. In a way, she had placed her life in his hands again, just as she had when she'd freed him from that frozen moment when she turned sixteen, and this time he wouldn't fail. He'd protect her this time, if it killed him.
I promise.
It was a dangerous promise to make, but as her chest rose and fell in time with the beating of his heart, he didn't mind. It was worth it. He would see his promise through hell and back if it came to it. And as he grasped that he had vowed to protect the daughter of a demon, he realized that it really just might.
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Notations1. For those of you who aren't strangely fascinated with weapons like I am, an Asp is a retractable bo staff (i.e. Robin's metal pole, for those who have no knowledge of martial arts weaponry). I always thought it interesting that Robin had been attributed a realistic weapon, and couldn't resist naming it for what it was. +grins+
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AN: So it was all a little OOC, and perhaps a bit mushy. I don't think it's an entirely implausible line of events, just not something that flows with the cartoon itself. The piece is too serious or that. But it was just a thought, and it spawned three pages of drabble-fic. No resolutions, no easy fixes to their problems, just a quick snapshot, a moment caught with one step forward. Let me know your opinions. Ya like it, ya hate it, ya wonder what in the nine hells compelled you to read it? Lemme know. But please, no pointless flaming for flaming's sake. It makes you look really pathetic. Actual critiques and thoughts are cherished and framed on my Wall of Stuffthings. It's quite an honor, really. +subliminal message+review+subliminal message+
Before you proceed…You should beware…
OF THE RAMBLING.
BOHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
WARNING! For those of irritable constitution, the entirety of the following is no more than a long series of ponderings, questions, speculations and suspicions. DO NOT PROCEED if you can't handle the rambling.
Alright, first things first. I've been wanting to rant this at people for a long time: Robin of the Cartoon Network version of Teen Titans is NOT nor might he even POSSIBLY be Tim Drake. He is very, very clearly Dick Grayson. It has been stated in a number of ways. ONE: in the episode where Robin's horrifyingly SD alternate self appeared, before he was called Larry, he identified himself as NOSYARG KCID, whom anyone with an attention span long enough can easily decipher to be Dick Grayson spelled backwards. TWO: Think "Haunted". You may have noticed, when Raven took a little hike through Robin's head, there was a distinct scene involving a Circus. Not only that, but the Circus was viewed from above, in a swinging motion—from a TRAPEZE, hey? Tim Drake had nothing to do with a circus. Ever. He was the son of a thug who double-crossed (forgive the pun) Two Face. Only Dick Grayson was involved with the circus; FLYING GRAYSONS.
Now, before you get on a war-horse or drag out the soapbox (this is my soapbox time, and I don't share it well), I'm not downing those authors who write Robin as Tim Drake. I'm perfectly aware that for a long time his identity was left to speculation, and that many people cemented opinions of him being Tim Drake before the unveiling of Larry and long before "Haunted". This is fanfiction, a suspense of belief is very often necessary. My irritation sits with those who have seen the Larry episode and "Haunted" and still want to protest that he is Tim Drake, simply because he is portrayed rather young in the series, plus his use of the Bo staff, a markedly Tim Drake trait. I think the writers borrowed it from Tim because it seemed cool, and because it gave them another way to put some Japanese-esque stuff into the show, other than its shoddy American anime imitation. I've no heat with people writing Robin as Tim Drake; some of the best ones are written using him as Robin. Fairy of Irrelevence most often portrays him thusly and she's a delightful read.
Now, as for my most recent soapbox… I am nigh convinced that the Teen Titans writers are reading fanfiction. I can see the logic in it; how better to figure out what your viewers want than by reading how they would have it done themselves? Consumer catering has a new line of insight. But really, think about it. In the past several episodes, I've seen several scenes/ideas/lines that gave me a sense of déjà vu. Not to mention, I'm sure many people have noticed the growing fanbase for the Robin/Raven pairing, and of late, the show has been flinging the two birds together far more often than they used to, giving them several moments and interactions, as if to fuel the fans' evidence and support for the coupling. Am I the only one who was positively delighted by "Birthmarks"? I doubt it. And look, Slade's back! Look, Slade's after Raven! Look, she's turning to Robin for help and support! Look, Slade's aligned with Trigon! How many times have you seen these very ideas used in plots or as plots for countless numbers of fanfiction, most or several of them Raven/Robin? Is it really such a farfetched idea? Am I the only one who's noticed these things?
Let me know if you think I'm nuts, if you agree, if you've noticed other things, etceteras, etceteras. I would seriously appreciate some feedback on this. I don't think I'm crazy… but do you+grins+
A throw to Tite Kubo's Bleach: Vol. 4