Raventhedarkgoddess: I don't really have much to say... Enjoy.
Chapter Four: Learn to Fly
Run and tell the angels
This could take all night.
Think I need a devil to help me get things right.
Hook me up a new revolution,
'Cause this one is a lie.
We sat around laughing.
And watched the last one die.
"No! No, no and no," Robin snapped loudly. The late-night skywas filled with a tint of bright stars, but he ignored them: He cared only about the training course and how the members of his soon-to-be reformed team were dealing with the intenseness of their late-night training. The person currently up was Raven, and any affection for him was swallowed by his fury and the rush of adrienile. "You have to look out!"
Raven preformed a graceful twirl in mid-air, although it looked far from graceful. The blue cloak swished around her, something she was not used to wearing after all this time. The projectiles from the training guns on both sides came fast and hard, and she used what she remembered to avoid them, moving left, then right, realizing just how hard it was to fly after all the time she had spend away. Suddenly, a tenth projectile, for she had managed to avoid nine, came out of nowhere and smacked a small vein on her left leg. It may not have been that big of a deal to most, but seeing the blood that ran down her left side from the small cut on her leg was enough to drive Robin insane.
Both of her feet touched down on the muddy ground. "Booya, new course record!" Cyborg yelled. "Nice job, Raven." For some reason, he felt more at home here than he ever had, working the machines and standing between people who weren't afraid of him, who wouldn't reject him no matter how stupid he acted, who ignored the fact that he was half machine and liked him just the same.
"No, not a nice job. What were you thinking up there? If that was a real enemy missle, you would have been hurt or killed!" Robin waved his arms wildly as he gestured to the long stream of crimsion blood running down her pale leg. "I want you to be more careful in our next training session!" His spikey black hair blew in an unseen breeze that took both his hair and her cloak, the material smacking against both their legs.
"So flying is just supposed to be something I remember how to do after all this time," she whispered quietly, and turned away from him in an easy form of emotion that was not at all hard to read as most things about her were: Disgust clouded her face.
"Flying is something one must remember how to do, though, if we are to be a team!" Starfire bubbled. Most of her perkiness had all but returned to her, and for some reason the insane jealousy was gone as well: If they wanted to be together, that was fine by her. At least she was not completely alone, the one thing she feared, the thing that had scarred both her life and her dreams since they had been apart.
Raven's feet sloshed through the mud and she did not look back: They could never understand. The door to the Tower clanked open, then shut so that everyone could hear them, although that was most likely not Raven's intentions, considering how much she hated to cause a scene. "Dude, she seems pretty upset over something," Beast Boy commented.
All anyone could do was nod and head toward the house. Robin sighed: He truly didn't want this to be all up to him to make Raven feel better. Something within him wouldn't stay away from her, though. He moved toward the Tower with resolve written on his thin face. He had to make her understand.
Maybe I'm the one with some understanding to do, the leader thought to himself as the doors shut behind himself and the team. He looked up at the silver moon, wondering how to talk to Raven, to a girl who was a blessing, an angel with a devil for a father and yet so withdrawn, so quiet.
This could take all night.
I'm looking to the sky to save me.
Looking for a sign of life.
Looking for something help me burn out bright.
I'm looking for a complication.
Looking cause I'm tired of lying
Make my way back home when I learn to fly. (high)
Her hands were under her head as she sat gazing at the round, pale moon. It was mysterious, so far away from her, and she wondered if somehow she couldn't make her way to the moon, so far away and peaceful in a way Earth could never be. Her heart was racing quietly in her chest, wondering if she had somehow made a mistake, coming back here instead of ignoring her affection and continuing to lead a normal, quiet life.
As if anything was ever normal in my life to begin with, she thought to herself. She shifted, tucking her still-bloody leg under herself as she sat up, continuing to look over everything she had so long ago said she would protect, the whole city included. "Maybe Robin's right," she whispered to herself. "I didn't do anything right back there and I'm not fit to protect anyone else."
Once again, she cast her eyes back upward, back to the midnight sky. For some reason, her lips formed involintary words, words without a voice. Save me, she mouthed to the stars and the moon above her. Save me from myself.
The entire world seemed desolent, bleak, as if she were all alone on a lifeless planet with no real love or feeling to the air. For some reason, this didn't bother her. What bothered her more were her own emotions, her feelings of attachment and love for the people she had once again joined as a team, had become a unity with once more and taken back many of the bonds she had tried to cut herself from to save herself the heartache.
Too bad I could never make it on my own.
For almost no reason, everything felt like an empty, hollow lie, including what she was repeating to herself over and over in her mind. I don't need Robin, I don't need this team, I just need to be a free and happy person... I just want to be free from all this pain I'm in... I just want to be alone...
I just want to be free of this lie. The moonlight reflected on her face, loose and forgotten, so much like herself that it almost hurt her to even think the words. I'm living a long, drawn-out, complicated lie, they came again, and she shifted again, uncomfortable within the confinments of her own body, so that she had her arms wrapped around her knees as if she might never let go, as if it would be easier to sit there forever with her violet eyes full of pain and her purple hair blowing in the wind, blue cloak around her as if it would protect her from everyone and everything around her if it had that kind of power.
"Raven, are you up here?" Asked a soft voice, and, even before she turned around, even as she felt the gooseflesh rising, she had to struggle to remain calm, for she knew who the soft voice belonged to. "Listen, I'm sorry about before..."
Think I'm done nursing the patience.
I cant wait one night.
I'd give it all away if you'd give me one last try.
We live happily ever trapped. if you'd just save my life.
Run and tell the angels.
That everything is alright.
I'm looking to the sky to save me.
Looking for a sign of life.
Looking for something to help me burn out bright.
I'm looking for complications.
Looking cause I'm tired of trying.
Make my way back home when I learn to fly.
Raven moved over and made a gesture with her pale, empty hand and Robin came over to her, back in hero's garb, looking more and more like the boy she remembered, the boy she had fallen madly in love with all that time ago and then hated herself for it. He really did look sorry: Sorry and alone as he took his seat next to her. The pale moon seemed to bother him, stretching out over his face and making him appear worn and tired.
"I just lost it out there earlier." The words were quiet and regreatful. "I don't even know what's wrong with me." He sighed for a second, sighing quietly as if he had never sighed before, for this one bore deeper regreat than usual at hurting her. "I don't even know what it was all about, I was just upset and it all blew up in my face..."
Raven sighed. She wished there was an honest way to respond to that, or at least a way to force out the words 'It's okay', but nothing came from her except that sigh, which clearly was misinturprited on Robin. "I'm sorry, I'll leave you alone..."
She caught his hand in her own and he was forced to look at her, although he wasn't sure if he dared to or not. Her eyes were not angry, only lonely, scared, and upset. "Robin, sit back down." Her voice held an edge, but not an angry edge, more of a gentle one, and he did give in and sit quietly back down. "You're just stressed out. You want us all to come back together. While it's true that you upset me, it's not really your fault." She paused and looked back up at the sky, his hand still clasp in hers. "You have every right to be angry that I can't even remember how to fly correctly."
"It's not your fault." The words stuck a bit in the back of his throat, though, and Raven could almost hear the hollowness in them. "If we had never broken up in the first place, we wouldn't have to go through all this." He stopped talking suddenly, feeling more alone and guilty than ever before. "It's my fault. I just wasn't patient enough to realize that everything I needed was already here. I just thought that elsewhere would be best... For all of us."
Raven didn't respond for a second, her eyes cast back to the moon. Suddenly, she hooked both arms under Robin's, holding him against herself tightly in her arms.
"I need some help to learn to fly again," she said in an almost emotionless voice. All the emotions ran tightly under the surface, though, as she held him there. "You're my leader, so you need to be able to help me." Both legs beat against the side of the building and, without warning, he was suspended below her in her arms.
Fly along with me.
I cant' quite make it on my own.
Try to make this life my own.
Fly along with me, I can't quite make it alone.
Try to make this life my own.
Looking to the sky to save me.
Looking for a sign of life.
Looking for something help me burn out bright.
I'm looking fora complcation.
Looking cause I'm tried of trying.
Make my way back home
When I learn to fly. (high)
The whole city appered small and lost below them. Her motions were unsteady, but Robin kept one hand on hers, reassuring her that she was fine in a strangled voice, in slight shock. Never before had he imagined how the world would look from the sky. The moon above them was cold and the whole world desolent, but for some reason this didn't bother him at all.
"Are you okay?" She asked him, her motions becoming slightly less clumsy with every second they shared, trying to keep her emotions in check. Without really waiting for an answer, she brought herself closer to the ground to land, far away from the lights, the noise, and the people. Silence fell around them. Robin touched his windblown face in uncertainty, not sure what he should say or do.
He didn't have to wait long, though. Raven was the first to begin talking. "Are you sure you really want to bring the team back together?" The question, one he had asked himself over and over again, shattered the mystical mood and left him feeling rather miserable within a few split seconds. "I mean, if you're really that uncomfortable around us and don't want to see me or talk to me again after how messed up I am, I can understand that much."
"No, Raven, this has nothing to do with you... I tried to bring us back together because of you... Don't think this is your fault, okay?" Robin found that the words just tumbled over one another in a breathless rush, the way he had sometimes had when he talked to Starfire before. "It's not. I'd rather try to fix this after I messed it up..." He stopped for a second and looked over at Raven. "I'm so sick of messing up just because I wanted to lie to myself and tell myself I didn't need anyone."
"This is a complicated situation. While it may have all been a lie, I don't want you to feel that you've made anything worse. We'll make this work out somehow." She stopped and gave him a smile. "We'll make it work together."
"Should we go..." He paused, faltured, wondering if they were the right words to say or if it was another mess-up, another stupid mistake on his part. He still couldn't help feeling as if something would fall out of place and he would really be alone again, but... "Let's go home."
Raven smiled at him, a smile that actually reached her cold eyes, and she held her arms out to him. "Yes," she said quietly, "Let's go home."
And that was when the communcator at her belt went off. "Yo, Robin, Rae, I don't know where you two are, but we need you here right now. The tower's under assult!" Cyborg was obviously frantic.
"Just hold out for a few minutes!" Robin snapped the communicator shut: Evil had a way of interupting all of the good parts of his life. "How fast do you think you can get us there?"
Instead of an answer, Raven moved her arms away from his shoulders and became a giant black bird. As he felt them vanishing, flying through the air and streaking for home, he knew somehow that, even in the worst situations, maybe things would get better for them.
Make my way back home and learn to fly.