Bright Line

Chapter Two: Extension of a Predicate

"Hey! 'Sup, Robin?"

He hated that word. It was something that people said when they didn't know what to say but wanted to have a conversation anyway. Besides, he never knew how to respond to it. Mostly because nobody ever really wanted to know 'what was up'—so if you answer, you sound like an idiot, but if you try to make some snappy comeback, you sound like more of an idiot.

Unless you were Raven, who never sounded like an idiot.

Of course, he still hadn't answered Beast Boy, which was probably the most idiotic option of all, but there was nothing to do about it now because Beast Boy hadn't noticed.

"So, I was thinking that me an' Terra could maybe—well, I don't know. I guess I was sort of going to ask her if she wanted to…" He blushed and became very interested in a spot over Robin's left shoulder. "Do you think she'd go to a movie with me if I asked?" The last sentence spilled over, not unlike the glass of juice Beast Boy had been pouring the other day: the one he'd forgotten to stop pouring when Terra stepped into the room.

Robin stared at him for a moment, trying to process that. A useless effort: it would take him a hundred years to exemplify all the things that were wrong with this situation. He settled for looking really confused. "I…err…but why are you asking me? This really seems more like a Cyborg question or a Starfire question." He considered. "Or even a Raven question."

Because, in the end, if you were still alive after asking, she probably would know what to do.

Finally able to look him in the face again, Beast Boy shrugged. "Starfire's still asleep, I am not asking Raven 'cos I think she's in her room and I'd like to keep my organs on the inside of my body…and I couldn't find Cyborg."

"So you settled for me: must have been desperate." He was joking, but it was at least half true. Robin didn't know about things like this; he just didn't. In the first place, he didn't see what the appeal was. In the second place, he wasn't very good at it, and everyone knew it. And in the third place, he didn't want to. He'd seen enough…

"Yeah, well, I had to talk to somebody, or I was gonna talk to her, and that probably isn't such a good plan, do ya think?"

"Fair enough," said Robin, focusing on the conversation, actually grateful that Beast Boy had derailed that train of thought. "Well, first of all, I hope you didn't have any plans with her for this morning, because she's mine for the next two hours or so."

Beast Boy took a second to process that and drew exactly the wrong conclusion, pointing a shaking, scandalized finger at him. "But…but I thought…okay, that's just wrong!"

"Oh, oh no, not like that," Robin amended hastily. "She's all yours as far as that…stuff is concerned, trust me." Such precision of language, he mocked himself silently. Robin didn't say 'stuff.' What was wrong with him? This was why he didn't like conversations like these: they made him stupid. And made him think about—shut up.

"Whew, you scared me there for a minute," said Beast Boy, laughing. He leaned against the door to the gym, tracing his finger along a crease in the wall. That was about as close as Beast Boy ever (voluntarily) got to the gym.

"You, umm, definitely don't have to worry, yeah." There was nothing wrong with Terra, but Robin wasn't interested. Well, first of all, it was really creepy how her bones stuck out in places that they shouldn't. But moreover, he just wasn't interested. Not in her, not in anyone. It didn't take any multivariable calculus to figure out that Terra made Beast Boy act much differently than he normally did, but understanding why was another matter. It would be easier to learn a foreign language at a rock concert while being attacked by fire ants.

"I was pretty sure you didn't mean it that way, of course—just checking." (Sure you were.) "But seriously, Robin, what did you mean?"

Robin checked his watch. She was late. "Well, she's got some work to do with me this morning. Today's her first official day of training and we've got a lot of ground to cover."

Scowling, he looked up from the crease in the wall abruptly. "Oh, c'mon, don't drag her into all that on her second day! She's so totally not ready for it, I'm positive; you're just gonna scare her."

"When would you like for me to drag her into it? When we're all dead because her powers decided to stop listening to her?" Terra's physical size was the really unsettling thing about her powers. The idea that such a little girl could just destroy whole cities with the right motivation. It was disturbing. Sick. Even somewhat cruel. Some kind of twisted irony, an English teacher might say, but Robin was no writer. He knew what everyone else on the team was capable of: with the incomplete exception of Raven, but at least she had no delusions about how much she herself didn't know, and couldn't control. But Terra's powers were a total variable, unexplored and unexplained…and that bothered him.

Beast Boy sighed, downtrodden expression indicating that he knew he'd lost this one. He took a quick glance in either direction then leaned forward and lowered his voice (Robin didn't like for him to be so close). "So, when you guys are done training, do you think she'd say yes if I asked her to the movies?"

"I don't know, Beast Boy. I told you that this is a Cyborg question; just wait and ask him when he gets here. He went to wake Terra up."

"Oh, so you've been hiding him from me; I see how it is!" He faked a particularly wounded expression and then continued in a really bad British accent. "Honestly, Robin, I don't know if we can be friends again after such lies and deception. Our friendship has been soiled to its deepest depths, my trust forever destroyed, my heart knowing no end to the..." He paused. "Hey…you're laughing. You think I'm funny! Terra's the only one who thinks I'm funny!"

Well, he hadn't really been laughing. Or at least, he shouldn't have; he was supposed to be waiting for Terra. Bad. Maybe he could tell himself that he did it on purpose to make Beast Boy happy. "Well, I think the accent could use a little work, but overall that was pretty good."

Beast Boy glowed. (Okay, good plan with the laughing thing.) "Sweet!" He switched gears immediately, serious and concerned. "But seriously, dude: just tell me what's on the torture menu for her, okay?"

"Nothing out of the ordinary; just some basic stuff to assess how much conditioning she needs," said Robin. He glanced at his watch again. Was she getting ready to work out or go to the prom?

"Now why are you going to make her do that?" Beast Boy tried to present a calculated smile, but there was nothing calculated about him so that didn't work.

Sorry, Beast Boy: nice try, no cigar. Robin could sympathize (or at least, he was really attempting to) but this was non-negotiable. "Take a wild guess."

"News flash, dude: we want her to like us," said Beast Boy, looking him straight in the face. It was one of his best tactics, one that he used all the time without realizing it. Beast Boy's vision of the world was simple, clean and easy. And he was ridiculously good at getting other people to feel absolutely nasty when they didn't agree with it. He did that to Robin a lot, actually.

This was one of those times. "I want her to stay alive. I don't care if she likes us." It was the right thing to say, and it was true, but it still made him feel like he should go off and hang himself somewhere.

"Well, I care! And what's that supposed to mean?" Beast Boy knew he had lost. But he was going to make it exactly clear how he felt about it, no matter what.

"It's obvious," said Robin, glancing at his watch again. "Her problems with her powers are directly correlated with her lack of control over her body. If we can't get her up to speed, who knows what…"

He didn't get to say the rest, because Cyborg and Terra rounded the corner just then, effectively ending the conversation. They shouldn't have been talking so loudly—but Robin didn't think they'd heard. Cyborg waved pleasantly, wide awake and optimistic. Terra trailed behind him, periodically glancing down at her socks with a disgusted pout. One sock was white, and the other was gray. It was obvious that she was very upset about this fact, but it would have been a lot less obvious if she weren't looking at them every three seconds.

"Morning, y'all!" Well, it was probably for the best that Cyborg said something, because Terra sure as anything wasn't going to speak up first.

Morning. Sure. Haha, Cyborg…haha. "To some of us it's morning," said Robin. He probably shouldn't have said that. It wasn't their fault that he didn't sleep and he had no business alluding to it. Complaining was stupid. Complaining wouldn't keep you alive. He shoved the thought to the back of his mind and turned to Terra. Focus on the present. "Alright, Terra, I think it's very important that you…"

Her high-pitched voice interrupted him, excited and just a little compensatory. "I know!" A big grin revealed tiny, white teeth. "I really think it would be great for me to train with you guys. So, where do we start?"

Standing there with her mismatched socks and messy ponytail, Terra looked like the clumsy heroine at the beginning of a kids' movie. You knew she was going to screw up, but you cheered her on anyway because you also knew that she would magically become amazing by the end of the story. Of course, this was reality. Even so, Robin felt guilty: she was scared and he was going to upset her. It was like forcing a kitten to run laps.

He smiled at her, hoping it was a reassuring smile. "Well, first of all, you're not training with us. I'm just going to see what you can do and give you some basic stuff to work on."

"Sounds fun!" Terra nodded, a bit too enthusiastically. You'll have to do better than that, Terra. She clearly thought that it sounded anything but fun.

"Yeah, I think it is." He turned to open the gym door, so Terra wouldn't have to keep pretending she was excited. It was the nicest response he could come up with, anyway.

While his back was turned, he heard Beast Boy whisper something that made Terra laugh. They really did seem to fit together. Maybe she would be good for him: Beast Boy needed somebody to laugh at his jokes. Robin just didn't understand why he needed somebody…well, in that way. Or even wanted someone.

Terra followed him obediently through the doorway, waving at Beast Boy who teased her about how this was clearly the last time he would ever see her alive. It didn't seem to frighten her, which was certainly a good thing. She seemed like the sort of person who might take that seriously. As she closed the door behind her, he turned on some music in hopes of discouraging unnecessary conversation. Robin wasn't the best with one-on-one conversation to begin with, but he was absolutely atrocious at it if he didn't know the person. And he and Terra were practically strangers. Best to have background noise.

It took Robin about three and a half seconds to realize that Terra knew even less about exercise than he'd feared. She was certainly eager to learn: a bit too eager, considering how often he had to tell her not to touch something. Some people just seemed drawn to anything that looked dangerous…and Terra was attracted to danger like a dog to antifreeze. Memo: keep Terra away from the dumbbell rack. They weigh more than she does, anyway.

They spent a lot of time on stretching because she seemed to like that, and there wasn't any need to scare her on her first day. Terra really was pretty flexible, though she needed to work on the fine art of 'following directions.'

"No, not like that!" He hesitated then forced himself to reach out and correct her physically, dropping the contact the instant he'd guided her arm into a safer position.

She rolled her eyes. "What's the big deal? The worst that could possibly happen is…"

"…that you dislocate your shoulder, and trust me: it doesn't feel very good." Notwithstanding the fact that she'd be totally out of commission for at least a week, which they could not afford.

"Yeah, yeah," said Terra with a wave of her free hand. "I've never broken anything."

And I hope you never do—or dislocate anything either, but I'm not holding my breath. He felt much better after he'd let go of her arm and put some space between them. "Well, as stupid as you might think I'm being, don't pull your arm back so far, okay?"

"Okaaay," Terra drawled. Though, to her credit, she did stop trying to murder her shoulder. At least somebody had her confidence back.

Robin would have been more than willing to let her keep this up for the entire session: it was good to start her off with something she was good at because she'd be less likely to rebel later when he made her do things that she wasn't good at. Besides, he'd gotten her to (mostly) pay attention and follow directions, which was more than he thought he was going to get out of her. But Terra got bored quickly. It didn't take long for her to grin up at him, with both feet behind her head, and ask, "So, what next?"

Well. She'd asked for it. He was about to say something that he was pretty sure she wouldn't be happy with, but then a universal constant was violated and he forgot how to talk. More specifically, somebody managed to sneak up on Robin. He felt that he could justify the stupidity that ensued, considering that universal constants weren't violated on a daily basis.

A smug look on her face, Raven raised one eyebrow at him. She was levitating over a bench, a few inches off the ground, and Robin had had no idea that she was there. "Umm…Raven?" He hated the way his voice sounded when he was confused.

Raven didn't answer right away, but Terra turned around clumsily, unfolded herself, and murmured out a greeting.

Okay. Get a grip. You were surprised: it's not the end of the world. Except that it was, because this was just the kind of stupid behavior that had to end, that was totally unacceptable, that… Smiling face on, now. "Not that we aren't happy to see you, but what made you decide to come up here? I thought you hated working out."

Raven shrugged.

"And more importantly, how'd you get here without me noticing you...? I notice everything." The thought ended up spoken before he could stop himself. Bad, bad. Sure, Raven had a knack for making him feel like he had straw for brains, but this really was a special occasion of idiocy.

She offered some kind of explanation: it didn't matter what, because nothing would excuse what he did (or didn't do, was the real problem). In any case, the best way to deal with it was to ignore it, for now. Back to the problem at hand: Terra and her exercise. He turned to the girl on the mat and started explaining the finer points of operating the treadmill.

Of course, Raven had something to say about the treadmill. A bad situation three weeks ago when he'd been tired and had run just a little too far. He tried to come up with a witty comeback, but Robin wasn't very witty, not around Raven, at least.

He went back to showing the treadmills to Terra, who looked confused. Although reluctant to leave the blue mat, she'd shuffled over to the appropriate corner of the gym and was now poking experimentally at the buttons. For some reason, she made Robin think of what might happen if you threw a torch into a swimming pool filled with gasoline.

"Got it," she said, when he asked if she understood. Her scrunched up forehead suggested otherwise, but Robin decided to give her the benefit of the doubt. Or make her think that he was, anyway. The benefit of the doubt wasn't worth Terra breaking every bone in her body.

He had to stop her from trying to run too quickly, but once she'd gotten to a comfortable pace, he felt that he could leave her alone with reasonable confidence. Hopefully, she wouldn't decide to press the emergency stop button or anything.

When he started running, Raven rolled her eyes at him. Her look said everything that needed to be said: I'm not going to pry, but you'd better believe that I will if I have to. It didn't matter; he needed to run. Maybe his body would remember this the next time he felt compelled to let people sneak up on him.

He watched Terra very closely, somewhat impressed. She was fast and agile, but tired quickly—it was easy to see why. She had gained a little weight since the last time she'd lived with them but still looked as if her organs were about to eat themselves. Diet was going to be the next hurdle they addressed. Three thousand calories and fifty grams of protein a day, indefinitely, whether she liked it or not. Emaciated, starving team members led to lost battles.

Ten minutes was really longer than he had expected Terra to last before she asked if she could stop. Give the girl credit: she did not want people to see her screwing up—and knowing that Raven was watching probably served as more than enough motivation.

Here comes the part she wouldn't like. "Go for three more minutes. We need to build up your endurance." Robin would have made her run for three more minutes regardless of how long it took before she asked to stop, because he was a believer in pushing beyond what you thought you could do. Gritting your teeth and doing what you have to do anyway, no matter how much you're sure that you can't—that was triumph. He cranked his speed up to eight miles an hour. Seven and a half was easy.

The look on Terra's face implied that she'd be perfectly happy to forego triumph and just turn the treadmill off, but one glance at Raven and she found the strength that wasn't there. Which, of course, was exactly what Robin wanted her to start learning how to do…even if it was coming from an unhealthy source at the moment. They could work on redirecting her motivation later. Eyes firmly fixated on the treadmill's display that kept track of the time, Terra didn't look up again until Robin told her that she could stop.

It took her awhile to get her voice back, but she eventually turned to him, red faced and victorious, asking, "Sooo…I'm…done?"

Robin told her to go stretch, smiling when she let out a whoop of excitement and hurried over to the mats. He might have laughed, but it was getting to the point where talking was just a little difficult. Better run faster. Eight and a half wasn't too hard.

Running was one of those constants, something that you could count on to always be the same no matter what. Monotonous, sure, but that could be a good thing when you needed things to be exactly the way you were expecting. And he liked the treadmill; it was controllable. That speed wasn't changing, not until you wanted it to, so it was easy to look straight ahead and just—stop thinking. Robin spent almost all of his time thinking, so this was good for him, good to focus on nothing but white noise and adrenaline and aching lungs. Beast Boy had asked him once if he ran to punish himself. He didn't, and that was the truth: besides, he liked running. But that was probably hard to understand if you didn't have the temperament for exercise. Exercise was so easy, so much easier than all the things he was horrible at, like knowing how to—

The belt slowed, imperceptibly at first but then it was impossible to keep running…and then he had to look down to see what was going on. Raven wasn't levitating anymore: she was standing right in front of him, hand on her hip, pressing down on the speed control and looking very displeased. Behind her, Terra shuffled from one foot to the other, an unspoken question on her lips as she glanced longingly towards the door.

"Time's up," said Raven dryly. It was deadly serious and very much an order.

"That was…uncalled for." He coughed. He hated the way he sounded when he did that.

Raven stared at him. "Was it really, now?" She leaned closer to him, really close, and he had to tell himself to breathe. "Get off that thing, Richard. Now."

Why'd she have to do that? Why couldn't she at least use his real name? But he stepped down from the treadmill, on the side away from Raven, mostly just to put some more distance between them. "I was finished, anyway. Yeah, Terra, you're done for the day."

Terra nodded, though she didn't make a move to leave. Oh well. Maybe she'd actually talk to Raven if she stayed for a few more minutes. That would be good.

The treadmill's side rails cut Raven's face in half at the nose as she stared at him, because even compared to him, she was short. "Go to sleep, Robin."

He was already halfway to the door, but he yelled over his shoulder, "Sleep is a waste of time…I need to look over the main computer; there's been some odd bugs in it lately." There were no bugs in the computer, and he knew because he'd locked Terra out of it last night, and of course he'd performed a systems check beforehand, but Raven didn't have to know that. He really would sleep soon. Just not yet. Because, in the first place, it would mean he'd let Raven tell him what to do. And Robin told other people what to do, not the other way around. And in the second place, he wasn't tired enough yet. If he slept, he'd dream. Driving back the thought, he focused on his need to find something else to do.

He heard her saying something about how he should at least take a shower, but he didn't turn around.