Bright Line

Chapter Six: Simple Inconsistency

"…not very good. He needs more medicine but I don't want to wake him up."

"You think his fever's still bad? That's the thing I'd worry about."

Voices. Low so he could barely discern what they were saying. Talking about something, something important…talking about him. Robin hated being talked about when he couldn't answer back, but he didn't know where the voices were or what they meant—in actuality, he didn't know where he was, not really.

Maybe he was dead. But he couldn't be dead, because then he wouldn't hurt as much as he did. It was even worse than that time that Beast Boy had decided to use him as a trampoline. The voices were saying something else, about how they should go outside to talk so they wouldn't wake him up. What was wrong, what could have possibly happened that was so…

A puzzle piece snapped into place, and the truth became clear. Sickness. Terra. The gym, a barbell, a conversation—that conversation…and Raven and pain and not hiding anymore, not being able to hide ever again. She knew, and who could say if she'd kept her promise or not, and maybe everybody else knew and what if…

But they were talking about him being asleep, and Robin latched on to that because he wasn't asleep, and it was something he could deal with, something he could respond to. "I'm awake, you know," he muttered, so hoarsely that it sounded like someone else.

The voices stopped mid-sentence. He opened his eyes slightly, squinting up at two Cyborg-and-Raven-shaped blobs and trying not to think about how tired and pathetic he must look.

"Oh, good; that solves that problem, then," said Cyborg. "We've got some presents for you." He was holding some tiny bottles that probably had pills in them, but everything was still so blurry and Robin couldn't read the labels. Probably for the best that he couldn't; he didn't really want to know what they were making him take.

"Hey," said Raven, softly. She was sitting in a chair by his bed—but not too close. "You can go back to sleep after you take your medicine. Cyborg, can you get him some water?"

When he looked at her for a few seconds, the room started to focus and he could tell that her eyes were red-rimmed and puffy. Crying. Over him. He didn't know when or how long, but it made him sick.

"How long was I sleeping?" He struggled to sit up, grabbing at the sheets for support.

"Since around six o'clock…yesterday. You know what to do with this." She passed him the thermometer that she'd been holding, and he collapsed back against the pillow as he lost the support of one arm to accept it. When it beeped, she let him know that yes, he was still sick—apparently, almost as sick as he'd been last night.

Last night. Something was different about last night, something besides the awful conversation. He'd slept when he didn't want to, but he hadn't…hadn't felt…he looked at the clock on his desk, cringing when he realized exactly how long he'd been sleeping. Figures that Raven wouldn't tell him the exact number. He wondered absently if there was anything else she was hiding from him.

Robin was glad when Cyborg returned with a plastic cup, because if he had to look at Raven's worried, helpless face for another second, he might actually start wishing he was asleep again, and that was just wrong. The two of them handed him what seemed like an endless collection of tablets, and he swallowed them mechanically and without complaint. He was through complaining. He'd lost his right to complain.

Luckily, there hadn't been much water left in the glass when a blinking, red light at Raven's hip distracted all three of them—because Robin promptly spilled it all over his bed.

Does the macrocosm just hate me?

"Got a call," said Cyborg, pointing to his own communicator. Robin couldn't remember what he'd done with his, but maybe Raven had put it somewhere…

"Oh, right, thanks for pointing that out," Raven spat, rising quickly from her seat and hurriedly putting the various bottles away, knocking at least two of them over. "Cyborg, can you…"

"Yeah, I'll get everybody organized; you finish up here." Cyborg nodded, disregarding the sarcasm in her first sentence and heading toward the door. They were completely ignoring him, talking over his head as if he'd never been the leader at all and it had always been this way, always been everyone for themselves with no direction…

But the next thing that Cyborg said pulled Robin out of his thoughts. He looked down at his communicator nonchalantly…and recoiled. "Slade. Wonderful."

Robin clenched his jaw tightly, staring hard at the place where the water had spilled and swallowing the lump in his throat. "I'm coming with you," he said, immediately frustrated because he hardly got the whole sentence out before the coughing started. Truth be told, he didn't know if he could fight, but he had to try. It wasn't safe for them to face Slade alone—and wasn't right of their leader to make them.

"Like hell you are!" Cyborg yelped from the doorway. "The only thing you're doing is sleeping, and the sooner you accept that, the easier this fight will be for us."

"I've been sleeping for fifteen hours!" Which was more than enough sleep for at least three days. And as long as he was considering sleep, why didn't he feel…what was so different that…? He ignored it, focusing on what was important. "Look: I'm fine, I feel better, I can fight—I swear." The sneeze betrayed him. He reached for a tissue and Raven handed the box to him with shaking hands.

"Look at yourself, Robin! If you go out there, we're gonna be so busy trying not to let you get hurt we won't be able to focus on the fight!" Cyborg paused, either to compose himself or to allow his words to have as much effect as possible. "You're a liability right now."

He felt as if he'd been punched in the stomach. He was, wasn't he? A liability. Robin looked down at his hands, which seemed so much smaller than they usually were, small and pale and trembling, and he shuddered in disgust. So this was their fearless leader: too sick to get out of bed even if he wanted to, and the very mention of their arch-nemesis made him want to hide under the covers. He wished he could run. Spar. Lift. Something. Anything would be better than lying here helplessly, but mostly he just wanted to fight, to do his job, to stop being the pathetic excuse for a leader that he had become.

"I just don't…" He felt his voice catch, and stopped speaking abruptly. Oh, you're not quite weak enough yet, is that it? Now you need to cry, too? Great plan, Robin. Great plan.

"Cyborg, go get the others." Raven's voice, sharp and authoritative, cutting through the self-pity and allowing him to at least focus enough to regain some control.

"He can't fight, Rae; he can't even…"

"I know that. I'll take care of him—you take care of the others," Raven interrupted, getting more forceful by the word.

"But we need you to…"

"Cyborg. Go. Away."

Confused but not about to argue, Cyborg nodded again and sprinted out the door.

As soon as he was gone, Raven turned her attention back to Robin, which wasn't the best arrangement because he didn't think he could win an argument with her right now. "He's right, you know. You have to stay, no matter how much you don't want to."

With effort, Robin finally found his voice again. "I can't, Raven; I can't just…just leave you guys to…I don't even know." He looked away.

"Actually, you do know, and you have thirty seconds to tell me," said Raven.

His head hurt. A lot. "I…" He paused to cough, more than a little grateful for the extra time to think about what to say. Lying to her wouldn't fix anything; she was going to make him stay regardless, and it would just make things worse. "If he does…something to any of you guys, I just couldn't…I'd rather die." It was the truth, and he knew it the minute he said it, because the only thing he was good for was protecting others. And yes, the fact that they were his friends didn't give their lives any more value than any other innocent, but the thought of that happening to one of his friends hurt so much more than any death conceivable.

When he risked a glance at Raven, the pain in her eyes was unmistakable. Pity. Again. "Alright. Listen. I won't let anyone get captured. I promise, okay?"

He'd like to see proof of that. "He's Slade, Raven. What are you going to do about it?"

"And you have a fever of 103.7: what are you going to do about it?"

Robin stared at her in indecision for a long moment, biting his lip, then he groaned and let his head fall back against the pillow, almost angrily. Surrendering hurt more than he'd been expecting, mostly because she was right; there was nothing he could do about it, and Raven's promise would just have to be good enough. And it wasn't. But it had to be anyway.

Because he didn't want to think about what would happen if it wasn't good enough.

"Good choice," said Raven. She was conflicted about something, a strange look on her face, and she took a half-step towards him before catching herself, placing one of her hands on the edge of his mattress like a compromise.

He remembered something. "Hey, wait: you didn't do anything with your powers last night by any chance, did you? Because for some reason…"

"We'll discuss that later," she interrupted curtly. Her tone softened as she changed the subject, and Robin didn't call her on it because sharp voices made his head hurt even more. "I'm sorry, Robin. I know you hate it. I'll see you after we win the fight."

"You mean if you win the fight," he muttered miserably, turning away from her and wondering if this was the last time he'd ever hear her voice.

"We will." The words were like shots fired from a rifle, and they made him feel a little better. Powerful as the man was, Robin still wouldn't have wanted to be in Slade's place this morning. Sure, the odds weren't good, but you didn't want to be on the wrong side of Raven's anger, no matter who you were.

Great: somebody was saving him again.

He didn't know how much time passed or when exactly she'd left, because he might have fallen asleep again after that (or maybe not), but later, he looked back toward the door and it took him a few seconds to figure out why Raven wasn't standing there. The hallway was utterly silent, and, of course, the Tower was huge but Robin was good at knowing who was around and what they were doing; he was nearly positive that they hadn't come back yet. His breath caught as the realization hit that they really might not come back. They might be killed. They might already be dead. And Slade would have killed them-- and be on his way-- here-- now-- and he was completely helpless. His breath began to come fast and hard as the thought became more real with every passing second.

"What does it matter?" he whispered furiously. "If they lose, it's my fault, I did this to them, I got sick, I failed to take down Slade, I made Raven's control weaker, I failed-- what could he do to me that I don't deserve-- I let them go fight him alone-- not even knowing-- oh god--"

How long had it been? Minutes? Hours? Sitting up with effort, he turned to look at the clock on his desk, trying to discern exactly how much panic should be allotted to the situation. How much more panic. He had to get out of here, had to prove he could move. Besides, even if they were okay, even if his failures hadn't destroyed his team yet, it was the height of laziness to just lie there when he wasn't even tired anymore. Maybe he could find some way to be useful.

The others had been gone for forty-five minutes. Not nearly long enough to worry, though he still worried, obviously. Robin shook his head and decided to try walking to the living room—better to get his mind off the problem.

Fortunately, it was a much easier task than last night's. Shuffling down the hallway in his socks (the floor was clean; Robin made sure that the floor was always clean) took more effort than he would have liked, but at least he didn't do anything too humiliating. Better to get used to moving around like normal while there was no one to see him screw up, anyway. When he finally reached the living room, he had to sit on the couch for a few minutes to make the ceiling stop spinning, but he felt fractionally less pathetic. As long as he didn't fall asleep again.

Predictably, everything was out of place, there were candy wrappers all over the floor, and someone had left the video games completely disorganized (Beast Boy…). Well. At least he could do this. Better wash his hands first, though, because he'd coughed into them and if anybody got sick because of him, he'd never forgive himself, ever. Rationally, cleaning the living room wouldn't help the others stay alive, but it made him feel useful. Besides. Looking at the clutter made him angry. The team could be so careless sometimes. Why couldn't they just put everything in the right place? When they came back, he was going to find out who had left the area so messy and…

Sure you will, because the only reason you're mad at them is because you're worried: and you should be; it's all your fault they're in danger, all your fault…

He had just finished putting the video games back where they belonged (in alphabetical order by title) when he noticed the mail. It had just been left carelessly on a side table, some of it hanging over the edge or even spilling over to the floor. Robin sighed loudly. Several options immediately sprang to mind as to who might have done that.

What made him pause, though, was something lying half-obscured by a fan letter addressed in crayon. A compact disk, silvery and thin, encased in cheap, jewel tone plastic. He picked it up, opened the case, turned it over and over—careful not to touch the underside, of course. No label. No writing on the disk itself. The case was pristine.

There were innumerable explanations. Most likely, it was some movie that one of the team had been watching and forgotten to put away. Seemed like something Terra would do. Or Beast Boy. Or, probably, Beast Boy and Terra together, because Robin could count the times he'd seen them apart lately on one hand.

In any case, it didn't belong with the mail and it definitely didn't belong unlabeled on the table.

Really, who left disks out with no labels on them, anyway? How were you ever supposed to know where to find things when you needed them? He couldn't just stick it with the movies, because maybe it was somebody's music, or even something out of his workroom. If it was the latter, whoever took it was in so much trouble. Robin didn't take kindly to people messing with his property, not at all. But no sense jumping to conclusions. He could worry about that after he knew what was on the thing in the first place. And anyway, he reassured himself, if it was from his workroom, it would have been labeled.

One way to find out.

Note to the esteemed readers: Up until this point, the two stories have been taking place simultaneously, chapter by chapter. In upcoming chapters, the dates will be slightly different, story-wise. The next two chapters of Bright Line take place before Cognitive Dissonance, chronologically. For this reason, the next two updates will be Bright Line only in order to keep the dates consistent. Cognitive Dissonance chapter seven will be updated with Bright Line chapter nine. No promises, but I might look into updating more often while we're "catching up." Expect something similar to happen with Cognitive Dissonance in the future; the stories will eventually even out again.

Thank you very much for your support and toall who have been enjoying the story so far. If you have any questions about the updating situation, please feel free to ask. I love hearing your thoughts.