Only Human
"Why do you keep doing this to yourself?" She muttered, her voice tired as she worked on healing his wounds.
He had come home about twenty minutes ago, looking bruised and beaten, despite his wounds, that annoying and strangely alluring smirk of his was still on his face. When she asked why, he responded that she should've seen the other guys.
It had become a habit of his, working with the team during the day, but when the sun went down, it was his turn.
Robin patrolled the city, acting very similar to his mentor when he jumped from roof to roof, his menacing stare looking for certain low-lives who decided to commit some kind of crime. Although Raven would never tell him that, he hated being compared to Batman.
Yes, the crime rates went down by a great deal because of this, but if Raven hadn't been awake each night when he came home, she was sure that his health would go down as well.
It wasn't that he was weak, oh no, he was anything but weak. He just had this urge to take on as many criminals as possible, pushing himself further and further every chance he got, which ended up with him 'winning', but with bruises all over his body.
The first few times Raven healed him, he had protested, stating it wasn't a big deal and that he could just sleep it off. But when you're arguing with Raven, you might as well stop trying, there was no way of changing the half-demon's mind when it was set on something.
"I have to-"
"No, you don't." She cut him off, her eyes set on him in an icy stare that could even make Killer Frost shiver. "You don't have to proof anything, you don't have to keep pushing yourself to save the city. That's what we're here for, to help you. You're only human."
He glared at her, his mask sitting on the table beside them, allowing her to see how his gentle blue eyes darkened at her words. "That's just it, Raven. I don't want to have to rely on someone to keep saving me, I need to be able to do it myself. You don't know how many times I managed to save me and the rest of Titans by pushing my own limits." He growled, his voice hushed to make sure he didn't wake the others.
"It isn't a bad thing to ask for help, it won't make you look weak, we know you aren't." She spoke up, her voice gentle as her wide Amethyst eyes stared up at him.
He looked away. "Asking for help wouldn't have saved my parents."
Oh.
The room filled with dead silence as Raven understood just what caused him to push himself so much.
It was the death of his parents, the weakness and helplessness he felt after watching them fall to their deaths. The knowledge that he could've prevented it by telling someone about the conversation he heard. It killed him, the guilt of not doing anything digging deeper and deeper into his own mind. That feeling? He never wanted to feel it again, and the only way he could accomplish that was by pushing himself so far that he could take on anything.
Raven pressed her lips together as she realized that was the thing that made him almost exactly like Batman, and he knew it. Which is why he hated being compared to his mentor.
Instead, she just sighed and looked down at the couch they were sitting on. "Shirt off," she muttered.
Robin hesitated, knowing that what she would see if he took his shirt off would make her anything but happy. But then again, if he didn't do it, she'd just get suspicious and he didn't feel like arguing with her again. So he tried his best to keep his face from showing any type of pain as he pulled his shirt off, his eyes looking anywhere but her.
Her breathing hitched, and he flinched, waiting for the outburst he knew would come.
"How exactly did this happen?" She whispered, her voice low and having a slight edge of suppressed anger to it. Her eyes trailed over the multiple stab wounds and bruises on his chest, some of them looking really serious, just from this she could tell that the damage on his back was worse than this.
"It may have been a whole gang..."
"Robin!"
"Sorry...?" He looked around, looking like a lost puppy who had no idea why he was being yelled at.
The half-demon closed her eyes, mentally chanting her mantra as a way to keep calm. "How exactly would the things you did to them be worse?" She questioned, regretting it immediately when he actually started to answer.
"Well, I knocked someone unconscious by smashing his head against a trashcan, kicked someone in the gut, might have knocked a couple of teeth out with my Bo-staff and...Shit. I think I broke someone's spine..." He flinched.
"Never mind, turn around." Raven rolled her eyes, deciding that talking to him would do more bad than good and focusing on healing his wounds instead.
