Don't own Five for Fighting's song It's Not Easy ((Mild Rae/Cy))

It's Not Easy

"Raven!"

Her name carried on the wind, twisting around them where they stood, high above the ground, high above the buildings and people below them. Raven wheeled around from where she was redoubling, ready to take another stab at the criminal. Robin apparently did not want her to face him, however, for he pointed off the edge of the building, wanting her to follow the way his green-gloved hand was pointing. "Raven, that girl is falling!"

The others were fighting, fighting hard, to surround Mumbo, to keep him in one place. "You're going back to jail where you belong!" Cyborg proclaimed, the side of him that was not robot, the human side of his face, covered, drowning in sweat. That poor little girl... He thought to himself, trying to let nothing show as he battled on, feeling Beast Boy swoop past him, seeing Starfire come around beside him, unable to reach the girl in time.

"I told you I would let her fall..." Mumbo taunted, his mouth open, a swarm of birds flying from his immense hat. His laughter was anything but ordinary as it spread over the rooftop of the bank: It was sick, cruel, and tantalizing, and Cyborg landed a blow, unable to take anymore.

Raven, however, refused to observe any of this, her eyes trained on the girl, hardly eight, falling, the bank-keeper's daughter... Suddenly her leg muscles pulsed, her body shot straight out, her arms in front of her, and she was flying in a way that almost reminded onlookers of a Superman pose from the comics they had devoured as children.

"Azarath, Metrion, ZINTHOS!" The last word was caked with an urgent sense, a sense that Raven only put in her voice when she was feeling something, feeling something against her will, wanting nothing than pure emotion to help her save the day. A black claw shot out, attempting to grab the girl, to pull her in... Raven's face quickly became a mask, trying not to let onto anything, not the panic she felt or the things that were going on in her head... Come ON... She flew lower, fighting with herself to catch the tiny blonde girl.

She heard the little girl scream and try to move from the black claw: Raven groaned inwardly. "I just want to help you," she shouted above the wind. The fall seemed to be slowing, but Raven couldn't stop the girl, couldn't save her now. Come ON...

A sick noise split the air, and Raven shut her eyes, pulling down, and looked at the little girl laying on the ground. She could hear Robin yelling something, but didn't respond. She mearly pulled her hood tighter to her face and flew up, away from the mess, away from the little girl.

Away from the sobbing noises emited from the throat of another person she had failed to save.

I can't stand to fly.
I'm not that naive.
I'm just out to find the better part of me.
I'm more than a bird.
I'm more than a plane.
I'm more than some pretty face beside a train.
And it's not easy to be me.

"Friend Raven had been in her own room for quite some time now, friend Robin. Perhaps we should go upstairs and speak with her to ease her 'depression'?" Starfire looked at Robin, her eyes glowing with an easy friendship and means. "I understand that the news of the girl's broken back must have shocked her, but surely we can..."

"Let her alone, man," Cyborg cut in. "She thinks she's guilty, and I say we just let her alone until she realizes she's not." The half-robot was turned away from them, his face set on gazing out the window, trying not to think of Raven's face when she had heard the news.

"It's not your fault. It's Mumbo's. She might walk again, Rae. You tried," he heard himself say again in his head.

"What kind of a hero can't even save a little girl from living a shadowed life?" He heard her ask again. Her face was nothing but a perfectly conformed mask, the tears and anger and rage just under the surface, clouding her entire voice. The door slammed in front of her face, and Cyborg had been left alone...

That was two days ago, he said to himself. I hope she's all right... Outside of the few dishes she left in the sink each night, no one had seen any traces of her. "Cyborg's right," Robin said, jumping him back to the present. "Raven just has to make up her mind for herself that everything is all right and she can keep fighting."

"Are you sure we can't help her?" Beast Boy asked, his hands clutching the controler slightly harder than he should have. He thought about Raven, never cheerful, but never one to fall into herself... It just doesn't feel right, said the voice in his head, and he agreed quietly.

"No. Just leave her alone." Robin looked out the window, trying to see what Cyborg saw as snowflakes began to fall. However, he knew that they were both seeing two different things: Two different visons of depression at having lost the same teammate.

Raven Roth was laying across her bed, staring out at the falling snow. There had already been alarms she had failed to respond to. She stretched her arms out above her head and quickly dropped them: Anything to keep from thinking about flying. I can't stand to think about flying anymore...

She could hear the others below her. They've got to think I'm the world's biggest idiot, locking myself up like this, but... She looked over at herself in the mirror, at the face that had once been proclaimed 'City Hero'. They don't even know what a hero is... If they could see me, they'd run the hell away...

She saw that her eyes were heavier than ever, from lack of sleep and mediation, and that her hair was tangled, her cloak torn from catching on the edge of her bed. What do I care? Hero... What a word... She saw the fall again, saw herself trying, trying so hard to save a life and failing... Heros are supposed to protect. That was... That wasn't protection at all... I as good as killed her...

"Rae... Rae, Could you come out her for a second?" Cyborg's voice was gentle, calling her out of her room. "I just want to ask you something..."

"I really don't want to talk right now," she called back. Is that really my voice? The edges were as hard as ever, but something inside her throat caught and held, erasing some of the lifelessness and putting sadness she could never afford to hear into her voice.

"Please, Rae? Even you must need to talk through something like this..." I just want to keep you from hating yourself.

The door swung open and Raven stepped out. I don't want to be alone, she thought. "All right," she said lifelessly. Her voice, however, still didn't feel like her own.

I wish that I could cry
Fall upon my knees.
Find a way to lie
About a home I've never seen.
It may sound absurd...but don't be naive
Even heroes have the right to bleed
I may be disturbed...but won't you concede?
Even heroes have the right to dream
It's not easy to be me.

Up, up and away...away from me
It's all right...you can all sleep sound tonight
I'm not crazy...or anything...

"Cyborg, I really don't want to be out here..." Raven looked at him with her eyes enlarged by the evergreen tree behind them in the snow. "It's freezing, and... And I don't think I'm going to stay with the team much longer." She looked at him, and he could feel the pain brimming under the surface. I can't let him know that... Why did I tell him that?

"You're going to give up everything and everyone who needs you just because you made one mistake?" Cyborg asked incrediously. "Things happen, Raven, and it wasn't your fault."

"No... There's more to it than that. Cyborg, how can a hero, a protector and a ruler, mess up? We're supposed to be... I don't know. Immortal, perfect... Super." She sighed and looked away, a single snowflake landing on her face and chilling her despite her hood. "I can't explain it..."

"I'm not going to make you try," he said softly to her. "But you should know that it's never going to get any better if you stay locked up, as if you've lost your sanity and everyone and everything you ever cared about."

"Do you know what it feels like to have to sit there, meditating to keep your thoughts in, when all you want to do is fall on yourself and cry for the kind of life you could have had?" She fixed him with a look that could not be defined as hateful, it was truely more of a thoughtful, complasive look. "Do you?" The emotional edge cursed her voice again, but it was impossible to force away.

"No."

"That's how it is for me now. I can't interact with other people... I've been spending hours on meditation, just to hold in it, and... I just don't feel like playing the hero anymore when I live my life hiding in the shadows with things in my heart that will never leave me, just because of how I was born." Raven paused for a breath, trying to figure out how best to word her problems. I just need someone to care...

Cyborg didn't say anything. Instead, he tapped his own chest once and looked into Raven's eyes. "You're not the only one who's only on this team because of the way they are. You're not the only one who socity thinks a monster..." He sighed openly. "I've felt that way before too, you know, like I can't do anything right."

"Cyborg... I'm sorry, I must sound so..."

He just shook his head weakly, as though not really in protest but as if he wished she wouldn't apoligize. "Rae... Just don't feel alone. We're all in this togther, and we all play the oppressed most of the time. But... Even heros have the right to bleed."

"It's just... It's... Cyborg..."A single second passed between them where her eyes because clouded with... Was it pain, or was it mearly emotions, emotions that the world hoped never to have to see there? He couldn't tell, but by the time his human eye blinked back his own pain, they were gone, and Raven was herself again, hard, cold, and depressed, standing with her back to the growing snowdrifts.

"I just feel insane..." She whispered finally, as if gaining control over her tounge to speak. "I'm just another disturbed freak..."

"Rae..." He exhaled the breath he's been holding softly, because he knew not what to say to her words. "I promise, it'll be okay...

I can't stand to fly
I'm not that naive
Men weren't meant to ride
With clouds between their knees

I'm only a man in a silly red sheet
Digging for kryptonite on this one way street
Only a man in a funny red sheet
Looking for special things inside of me
Inside of me
Inside me
Inside of me

"You'll be okay... It doesn't matter how you feel now," he whispered, taking her hand, although it escaped the notice of both of them for quite some time. Finally he called it to her attention by breaking them apart, her cloak whipping back in the wind.

"Yes it does. If I don't stop feeling things, if I can't just act like a hero without thoughts and feelings, then I have no powers and I'm even less of a hero than I am now." She rubbed the hand he had released subconsiously, trying to bring back any warmth he may have permitted to linger there. "Why were we even born? Why does the media think of heros as... As super humans...?"

"I don't know, Rae. I really don't. All I know is that heros weren't meant to fly. No one was meant to ride the clouds. Least of all someone who never asked for that kind of life at all." He sighed, looking away. "We can't help the way we're born, but if I hadn't been in that damned accident... Sometimes I wish I'd died! Then I wouldn't have to protect people from danger or act like some fly-boy hero in costume!" His fist pounded a nearby tree, and Raven took a step closer to him, preventing him from slamming the tree and damaging it further.

"Stop that, Cyborg."

"I'm sorry, Rae... I really am." It's just so hard to think about... About guys like Robin, who just wanted this life, and then people like us, who can't be among normal people because of how we look, how we act, how we are inside..."

"No, Cyborg. You're a normal guy inside, and you know that as well as I do... It was stupid of me to think I could just run away." She sighed. "Being like this... It's not something we can run away from, no matter how many times we fail, is it?"

"No, we've just got to keep fighting... Even though the fight isn't worth anything..." He sighed and smiled at her, if only for a breif moment. "I'm just glad you're not going to leave us now... I don't think anyone could have saved me if you had."

"No. I would still be in my room if it weren't for you." She moved closer to him and he hugged her, so that both of them were involentarally involved in a display of affection. "I almost forgot that to be a hero, you have to... You have to know that it's all just a joke, that you're still a human, regardless... Even though I'm not a human."

"Rae... I don't know what to say. I never knew you felt that bad..." He moved closer to her, his eyes closing, and she closed hers too... Suddenly, they weren't heros and they weren't socitiy's freaks anymore: They were two normally teenagers who knew what everyone knew, if not justa little bit better; Life was not easy.

I'm only a man
In a funny red sheet
I'm only a man
Looking for a dream

I'm only a man
In a funny red sheet
And it's not easy
Its not easy to be me.

"Where were you two!" Robin demanded. "We were worried, and then when Raven was gone... Raven!" He saw her standing there next to Cyborg, and her apperence startled him: She no longer looked disheartened or upset, although she did have a rather thoughtful apperence on her face, looking quietly around the room.

"I'm sorry if we worried anyone," she muttered. "No need to act like a mother hen, though." She moved through the room.

"Is she okay?" Robin asked Cyborg, watching her go.

"She'll be fine, man." He ran his hand over the side of his face quietly and quickly, trying to avoid the strange looks of the others. "She's just another broken hero," he added with a whisper.

Upstairs in her room, Raven did not move or speak: Instead, she was still, gazing out the window, her knees drawn against her body to chase the memories away, memories of battles and fights, of the falling girl and Cyborg's words... Heros are just lies in fly-boy costumes, Rae...

"So a hero really doesn't have the right to dream anymore than an animal." She ran her hand along the side of her face, remembering Cyborg and walking with him, talking over what it truly meant to be a hero. For no reason, she leaned over and grabbed a peice of paper: She knew what she was going to do.

Hero
Raven Roth

A hero flys above the trees
The secrets kept residing on the heart.
Memories of forgotten dreams
to keep them from falling apart.

Wearing another costume traid
Protecting the identiy they no longer possess.
Too much of a freak to actually be wanted
But with nowhere to go it's a hassle to confess.

And somehow now they hold those dreams
Although the peices remain in their arms still.
With the cry of how uneasy life is,
They move on with a sheer unindulged will.

I'm nothing but a shadow hero.
Who's remembered until she falls.
But it's never easy to be me.
And no one would hear me if I should call.

She folded the paper: Released feelings that could fly away. Maybe in time...

Someday. She thought. Someday it will all just fly away... And it might be easy to be me.