…..
Not a dream… a horrific recollection. Of when Cinderblock fell in the street on top of that slobbering metal deathtrap. Black slime poured out upon the street like pressurized jets of water. Her hands lowered to her sides and Raven looked back at everyone else. Cyborg herded the crowd of useless gawkers away from the scene. Starfire and Beast Boy were only a yard or two away.
A touch. A premonition hummed around her head. No images, no tingling going up and down her spine, no loss of breath. Just a feeling... that... she had done something terribly, terribly wrong.
A name issued through her lips, her voice rising to a scream even though she had no idea what was going on. Then she saw Robin's arms arch back as he fell onto the gravel-sewn street.
He was out.
He was down.
She felt a sinking in her chest… perhaps her heart was failing…
Starfire was by his side in an instant. She would have sacrificed herself if it meant to save Robin's life, Raven knew this. She knelt there beside him. Her face the picture of astonishment. Beast Boy joined her and let out the coldest, inhumane sound from his throat, going after Johnny Rancid, and in a fit of uncontrollable rage, snapped his legs in his jaws.
Blood mixed with oil. . . was Robin bleeding?. . . . . we're suppose to be the good guys. . . . good defeats all evil. . . . . . . we're suppose to protect our people at all costs. . . . . . . . even with our lives. . . . . . . he has to be alive, Azar, keep my leader alive- no, my lover- I love him, I can't lose him, we're suppose to fight crime until we're too old and die in each other's arms. . . . . not like this. . . . not with all these people watching. . . . not when he's alone. . .
...
Her mouth moved to perfectly form the last word. Her closed eyes began to sting. A friendly voice floated into her hearing, "...Rae, are you awake?"
Beast Boy's green eyes peered into her half opened lids. He was crouched in front of her with two cups in his hands. With aching limbs, she wordlessly plucked one from his fingers and took a swallow of the hot liquid. Dark and bitter. Coffee. It wasn't tea but Raven didn't mind because she didn't want to be calm. She wanted to magically forget yesterday, go back and erase it from existence. Beast Boy, in a ripped shirt and pants, sat down in the waiting room chair beside her. Raven looked around.
Tacky red and green paper decorations hung taped over the huge windows and the ceiling of the room. A fake Christmas tree stuffed in the corner, gleaming with glittery popcorn stringing and extra ornaments made by the patients from the Children's Ward. All of it, that cheeriness, it mocked her.
No one on their team had ever been sent to this hospital before. She'd never been inside one until yesterday.
Not when Robin fractured his arm, not when she left her body for a month, not when Starfire got her face slashed…
Suppressed memories. No good returning to what happened.
The Tamaranean emerged from the girl's washroom, a blank expression plastered over her generally bright face. It intimidated Raven to see a lack of emotion. Starfire hunkered two seats down, staring ahead paralyzed. Her eyes weren't wet, she wasn't about to cry. Good. Raven's emotions already felt like they were going to burst.
There was no sign of Cyborg anywhere.
Raven scooted a seat next to her and reached out to take Starfire's hand. She pulled away, but Raven would have none of that. The empath took the orange hand into both of her own, asking placidly, "What's the news? Has anyone said anything?"
"We don't know." That's all Starfire said before she continued to stare ahead vacantly. It wasn't much of an answer, but Raven didn't push for more. The staircase door nearby swung open. A nurse, a female in her late thirties, said loudly, "Is there a Raven here? Raven?"
She unwrapped her hands and set Starfire's limp hand back into her lap, getting up.
The dark-eyed nurse took her arm and began walking with her upstairs. Raven didn't look back. Through a busy hallway, Nurse 'Camila' as it read on her nametag, attempted to make conversation. "He is quite the gentlemen." She told Raven mildly, smiling, "I can see why a young lady like yourself would fall for him- Oh, beg pardon. I know that face. He's a sweet boy, and polite, too. Hardly ever complains when we go through procedures. Are you his fiancée?"
Raven said nothing to her and Camila prattled on cheerfully, "He has requested that you should see him immediately." She stopped them in front of Room 364. "Here we are. I'll leave you two to it." The nurse vanished to attend to an older woman with a walker in the hallway.
Pallid, slender fingers clasped the doorknob and Raven took in a mouthful of air, not bothering to open the door at that instant.
When she did, she saw that the inside was a private one-person room, a food tray placed aside, and the walls were a ghastly yellow color. The individual she was looking for laid in a thin, hospital bed, sheets half pulled up, and one of his eye masks tied around his face.
Raven moved quietly to where Robin slept, her violet eyes tracing over to his bandaged right hand, to the stitches on his neck, and back to his mask.
'How the hell did he get one of those? Is there a stockpile in the hospital, too?'
After watching him silently for a few minutes, she realized that he was not asleep and he had been aware of her arrival from the beginning. Robin sat up, a familiar smile tugging the corners of his mouth. Raven couldn't help but throw herself at him, slipping her arms around his warm body, and burying her face into his muscular chest.
"Azar… thank Azar you are still alive..."
Her relief welled up in her eyes and she felt his hands stroke her back, briefly.
He lifted her face, much to her discomfort, his undamaged hand trailed over her ruby chakra on her forehead. He fingered it lovingly and kept on smiling.
"Hey, babe." Oh, who cared if it was a sexist phrase! She was just glad he was. Raven managed a small noise. Robin pushed her when she tried to hug him again. "Rav, I've got to tell you something," he said, lowly. "And I don't know how you're going to take it."
'He's never called me that before. Something…. something is very wrong with this picture.'
"Are you okay?" she asked.
He rubbed his bandage, shamefully. "I've been better. I called you here because I wanted you to be the first to see, and hopefully the only... This changes nothing. Do you understand me?" She nodded, her throat constricting. Confusion and terror clogging her airway from breathing properly.
Robin asked again, his tone pitching down to severe, "Rav, is that a yes or no?"
"Yes. What is it? You're starting to scare me."
A hoarse breath escaped him. Robin kissed her for a short and tender moment, almost considering backing down on his word. No. Robin wasn't a coward. He grudgingly raised his hands, sliding his mask over his head. He rubbed his close eyelids slowly and then finally opened them. Staring back at her was two misted, solid white eyes.
"I'm blind."
…..
Silence so loud that it was overpowering. It went on forever.
Robin felt her weight on the hospital cot disappear. Raven was backing away. His sensitive hearing detected the sound of a body, a very light body, collapsing into the floor tiles. He pounded the call button on the overhead board and got up. His drugged limbs wavered and Robin sat down heavily. Getting up wasn't an option.
For minutes that seemed like hours, he stayed where he was, wishing that she would snap out of it.
His personal nurse Camila stepped through the open doorway, chirping, "What can I do for- SON OF GOD!" She gasped, accidentally kicking Raven's body. "What on earth happened in here?"
"She fainted. Bring her over to the bed."
Camila pursed her lips. "I highly disagree against this, Mr. Grayson… Hospital policy states-"
"Then stay in the room, I don't care." Robin tried not to sound exasperated, "Please, Camila, just do this for me." The nurse muttered noiselessly under her breath as she hauled the figure on the floor onto the foot of her patient's bed. He tugged Raven's motionless form close to him, surprised to find how weightless she seemed, and gently touched her hand,."C'mon, Rav... wake up." Eventually, she came to, and when she did, Raven started crying. The kind of crying that rarely people could show their loved ones. He took her into his arms awkwardly, a little unsettled by the sudden mood swing. "Don't cry. Hey, it's okay. You're okay."
"It's not okay," she gulped, "This is all my fault. I took your masks... my dream. Oh Azar…if I hadn't interfered, you'd be home right now. Not stuck in this awful place…not…"
Robin cradled her head to his chest, ignoring the moisture dampening the front of his hospital clothes. He asked the nurse, "If there's any herbal tea out there, can you get a cup for her? And bring my friends in... their names are Cyborg, Starfire, and Beast Boy."
Camila made another strained expression, making her way out. "Right away, sugar... but for my job's sake, don't do anything I can get fired for…"
If the situation wasn't so serious, Robin might have felt inclined to argue. Right now, he wished all of this wasn't happening. He held Raven's tear-stained face in his hands and said as kindly as he could, "Please, calm down. Don't blame yourself for this happening."
"But… my dream…"
"What would it have changed? Rav, we're suppose to put our necks on the line. I know the consequences of what I do. I would have done the same thing over again with or without a mask. I found an extra mask in my pocket when we left. I chose not to put it on." Robin wiped away the remainder of her tears with the pads of his thumbs. "Later we'll talk about your dream and can have a good cry but now you have to get a grip on yourself. I don't want everyone else to see you like this."
Heavy footsteps were coming up the hallway. Raven reached for the Kleenex box nearby and blew her nose, dabbing her red-tinged eyes. Robin ran a hand through her messy sleep-tousled hair. "You're always beautiful," he said patiently, massaging her back as a group of three stared at the pair from outside. Robin gazed at him maskless.
Their faces, all of them had equal expressions of fear etched on them. Not for themselves, but for their leader.
Starfire gasped out, "No... no no no!" Instinctively, he reached his hand out and she came forward to take it, squeezing his fingers painfully. Several drops of tears splashed onto his arm.
"Robin…"
He held up his bandaged hand.
"Team, before you ask questions, I have to explain the situation I am in. I sustained a few abrasions and an incision on my neck." Robin pointed to his white eyes bitterly. "What Johnny Rancid threw in my eyes was a chemical that burns corneas and erases the irises. He has rendered me blind."
"Permanently?" Cyborg murmured.
"Permanently. The damage is irreversible by any-" Robin's head snapped to the left, in Beast Boy's direction. "Beast Boy. You're fidgeting. You want to ask something?"
The green changeling gaped, holding up a finger. "Dude, how did you do that?"
"Cutting off my vision heightened the rest of my senses. It reminds me of the time I searched for the True Master. I battled the Snake and he taught me to fight in darkness and not to rely on my senses. I can't really explain it but I can feel things, not in a mystical sense like Raven, but at random. The chemical might have something to do with it."
Raven questioned, dully, "Radioactive?"
"No, the lab would have identified it if it was radioactive. But, Cyborg, I figured you might want to test it out yourself." Robin pulled out a vial tube out from under his mattress and tossed it in the air. Cyborg moved a little to the right to catch it. Beast Boy shook his head, made a comment about keeping dangerous chemicals under the mattress. He received several smacks on the head.
Raven lowered her eyes. She couldn't bear to look at their faces anymore.
Something inside of her threatened to burst.
(Not her emotions...)
Robin went on, "I'm staying here to train and take some more tests. I wouldn't do it if I didn't have to. Cyborg, you're in charge for now."
The other man nodded, grimly. "You got it."
"How did we do against Cinderblock? Did Johnny Rancid get away?"
Cyborg's glance switched over to an uncomfortable green changeling.
"No. Beast Boy took care of him."
"Civilians safe?"
"Yes."
And she couldn't control it any longer.
"That's good news- we should make sure-"
Suddenly, the food tray on Robin's right side went flying on the floor as a hand swiped it away.
Starfire held her fists, eyes glowing, and stopped when she saw Raven stand up, her hands in her hair. She said with a raised voice, objects in the room turning dark blue, "How can you stand it? How can you stay calm when you know your life can never go back to how it was? How can you not feel anything? You are blind, Dick! Why are you calm?"
They thought she finally blown her gasket. Only Robin kept facing forward, his voice restrained, "Because I have to, Raven. Because I don't have a choice. If I have on chance of regaining a trace of what my life was like, I can't let being blind hold me down. You know what I'm talking about. We've danced this dance before." Robin touched the bedside. "Sit down."
"Shut the hell up."
Gasps reverberated the room.
"I've lost my last piece of sanity over the past three months. I lost my appetite, weight, sleep; I haven't been able to meditate because of the godforsaken images popping up again and again like a never-ending nightmare. Every time I close my eyes, there it is. It is the last thing I want to do."
Robin finally turned his expressionless face to her. "Then what do you want?" he asked.
Quiet. The objects stopped glowing.
"Help." She pressed the heel of her palm against her hairline. "And I don't think I can get it."
Beast Boy blurted out, "I know someone." He dug into his pockets, gum wrappers and dirty napkins falling out. He pulled out a small card. "I saw this woman after my parents abandoned me. She knows all about dreams and junk like that." Beast Boy placed it in her palm and closed her fingers around it.
Her violet eyes flickered over the name Gloria Esteban and she said weakly, "Thank you."
"How do you feel?"
Raven sat back down, tucked in the crook of Robin's arm, answering him, "Like a weight has been lifted, like I can breathe somewhat… so much for staying calm."
"We've seen worse," Cyborg quipped, trying to cheer her up.
"No… that was pretty bad." Another smack across Beast Boy's head from the tin man.
"We're going to get something to eat, you guys want anything?"
Robin mouthed no and Cyborg took Starfire's arm leading her out with Beast Boy. Raven focused her attention back to Robin. "I'm sorry."
"Apology accepted. I'm sorry that I'm not more patient with you."
Raven looked out the window, the late morning sunshine begging to be let in through the gray curtains.
"I wonder sometimes…"
Pallid and tannish fingers laced.
"...how two very different people like us could ever have fell in love," she murmured. A cocky grin pasted over his face.
"I blame fate most of the time."
...
Maybe love didn't have to be explained…maybe they didn't have to understand.