Raven worried for him.

She worried for him when he was fighting, she worried for him when he was not. If she hadn't known better, she might've thought it'd been a curse.

She worried because of his tendency to overwork himself, his tendency to put himself last. She worried because should the time come, he'd be the first to risk it all if there was only the slightest chance it could save someone else. She worried because despite it all, despite his strength and skill on the field...he was still human.

Robin had been doing this job far longer than any of them had; had practically been raised into this lifestyle. He could handle himself, she knew that, but she also knew that, for as much as his freakishly analytical brain worked overtime, he still had it in him to make the most reckless decisions should he ever feel cornered.

And one thing she had learned about this life early on was that you'd find yourself cornered more often than not.

Raven tried her hardest not to let her worries consume her for reasons that were fairly obvious considering the often unstable state of her abilities. In fact, she often liked to pretend they simply didn't exist. Her philosophy of blocking unwanted emotions out was one she admittedly wasn't too proud of, especially since she had a lot more freedom after her father's defeat, but it was a habit so ingrained into her mind; into her soul that it was a nearly impossible one to shake.

Even practicing with sweet Starfire, the one person who's abilities thrived on the concept of overloaded emotions, didn't seem to help very much.

So she locked them away. Robin would exit battle with a cocky smile and barely all of his limbs intact and all Raven would do was just...raise her hand and heal whatever severe injuries needed attending, swallowing down the rising panic in her chest as much as she could while keeping her expression stoic.

It was a skill, but by god did she sometimes hate that skill.

Especially because, now that she was forcing that fragile, almost glass-like bundle of hectic chaos down, pretending it didn't exist; pretending that no one else knew it existed (Robin was on to her, she knew that damn well), it needed to find another way out. Unfortunately for the sorceress, that way out seemed to be through her already hellish night terrors.

She'd been sleeping, her window open to let the soft night air breeze through her room in a futile attempt to maybe calm her skittish nerves. Nightmares were something Raven had to deal with almost daily, so much so that if she didn't wake up in a cold sweat at least three times a week, she'd grow suspicious of herself and everything around her. Paranoid, maybe, but when you grew up in a borderline satanic cult with a literal demon for a father, that was unfortunately what happened to you.

Recently, however, the nightmares had started becoming more personal; more close to home. Usually they involved her father's return, the end of the world or maybe even her own death; scenarios that were still terrifying no matter how you looked at them, but the fact that she'd already lived through it once before made it a little more bearable to swallow down. Raven would wake up from these dreams with a scream halted on her tongue and a chill down her spine, but it was certainly nothing a good book, quick walk or a cup of herbal tea couldn't fix.

But now, now the night terrors had started working on her worries, slithering towards the relationships she'd formed with her teammates; with her friends.

Robin was, of course, at the center of these dreams; because when wasn't their spoiled, masked leader at the center of things?

Choking on a poorly suppressed cry, Raven shot up in her bed, nothing but cold sweat dripping down her body as she fought to keep her rapid breathing in check. It'd been bad this time, very bad. The memory of the dream was already starting to fade, but the feel of it, the sheer horror she'd felt during her sleeping moments refused to leave her be. The panic stuck to her like glue and it wasn't long until she felt that predictable, yet telling, power-surge burst through her body.

Raven wished she could say that the way her hair fluttered around was because of the wind blowing through her open window; but the fact that a surge of dark energy had forced that very same window shut as soon as she woke up was probably telling enough in itself.

The half-demon tried to calm herself down, tried to force the unnecessary and, frankly annoying, night visions down enough for her to either go back to sleep or maybe get out of bed for a bit, but nothing seemed to be working. Especially not because-

The door slid open.

Someone was here.

Eyes widening, Raven couldn't help but freeze up, the echoing sounds of the nightmares she was slowly starting to forget hitting her back at full force.

Out of pure instinct and misplaced terror, Raven had already been readying herself for an attack. Her body tensed up, her sweaty hand lifting from the sheets in favor of lighting up with a disk made of pure negative energy. Her mind had blanked out, starting to make the switch from full consciousness to sheer, defensive autopilot but before she could complete it, a cool, soft hand slid over the one building up with her darkness, fingers interlacing with her own shaky ones and at the touch, Raven hesitantly dropped her magic.

"Easy Raven," his soft, obviously sleepy voice drawled. His fingers, still interlaced with hers, tugged gently at her stiff hand until she loosened up enough for him to lower it into his lap; bare thumb brushing carefully over the back of her cold skin. "It's just me."

His voice was husky, low and full of sleep, yet clear in the vestiges of her own mind. It cut through all the static and white noise starting to rise with startling ease, lowering the nightly panic just by his presence alone.

The insistent beating of her heart in her chest- in her throat-

With a deep gasp that sucked in all the necessary air she'd been forgetting to take in during her moment of solitary terror, Raven could finally recognize the darkness in front of her as her own room; recognized the presence beside her just as easily.

"That's it," he murmured, a praise in his voice that under normal circumstances, she'd have scoffed at. "Breathe for me."

His thumb was still brushing over the back of her hand, rubbing in soothing motions as she worked to get her breathing back on track. The insistent beating of her heart hadn't stopped yet, mainly due to the fact that, during Raven's moment of terror, she'd forgotten to breathe entirely and her poor heart was fighting desperately to make up for the lack of oxygen it had received in those few, but telling seconds.

With another deep, shaky breath and a slight squeeze of his hand, Raven looked up at the person beside her. She focused on the blue of his eyes, the messiness of his hair, the sleepy, yet soft smile on his lips.

He was here. He was safe.

"Good morning," he greeted cheekily, in perfect Robin fashion because what else would he do?

And as out of character as it was, Raven wanted to reach for him; wanted to hold him close and listen to his heartbeat, just so she could have the confirmation that he was there, that he was okay.

She didn't, of course, not that far gone to overstep whatever boundaries she had forced upon herself, but the thought didn't seem to want to shake itself out of her mind.

"What…" her voice felt shaky; his grip on her hand tightened. "What are you doing here?"

"Beast Boy heard you screaming." His tone was careful, eyes scanning her face for any sign of reoccurring panic or self-loathing but other than a brief widening of her eyes, Raven gave nothing.

Screaming. She'd been screaming.

The bedroom walls had been soundproofed after many noise-complaints due to Starfire's habit of blasting music through the new speakers Cyborg had given her as a gift, and Beast Boy's habit of watching niche cartoons at full volume in the middle of the night. So for him to have heard her despite all that….just how bad had she been?

"Hey," Robin's voice echoed through the room again, his lips touching softly against the back of the hand he still held in his grip. "You're thinking too loud."

Raven turned to focus on him, her attention momentarily torn away from her very interesting bedroom wall. He'd gone back to tracing patterns on her hand with his fingertip, smooth skin writing over her own in the absence of his gloves.

"Way too loud," he repeated, the look in his eyes a lot less sleepy and a lot more thoughtful. "Yet I can't figure out for the life of me what you're thinking."

Raven tensed up again, visions of Hell itself rising back up to the surface of her mind.

She didn't want to tell him.

She wasn't going to tell him.

"Nightmares," is what she settled on, not too distant, but just vague enough to save herself some form of privacy. It didn't matter how well they knew each other, how much she trusted him, Raven just….didn't want him to know.

But of course, she rarely ever got what she wanted.

Robin stared at her, his gaze calculating as it trailed over her relatively flushed face. "Nightmares…" he echoed, eyes briefly sweeping across the room before settling on their joined hands once more.

His jaw clenched, eyes clearing up with a decision.

Raven tensed up again.

With one final look at her face, Robin's grip on her hand tightened just enough for him to push it back down onto her pillow, her body going down with it. Raven didn't fight him, didn't feel the need to. He was always gentle with her, had never once made her feel unsafe or tried to force her out of her comfort zone. He always respected her boundaries, so whatever he was doing, she trusted it.

Besides, her heart still hadn't slowed down its marathon run, her breathing was still uneven, her powers were still stirring within the depths of her mind, flowing through her body, coursing through her blood-

Robin leaned over her, his gaze level with hers, easily reading the panic she fought so hard to suppress and she knew she was doomed. There was no use in hiding it anymore; they had a bond, after all.

"I can't believe you sometimes," he murmured, a smile in his voice as his free hand reached up to brush back her sweat-slicked hair, the touch lingering for just a bit longer.

"I know."

"I can handle myself."

Raven squeezed her eyes shut. "I know."

His face lowered to hers then, lips meeting in a chaste, yet meaningful kiss that had her grip on his hand tightening even more because her heart just shattered.

She'd miss this. If anything ever happened to him, she'd miss this, she'd miss him.

"Stop," he told her after pulling away, voice stern all of a sudden and with a start, Raven realized she'd been trembling again.

That was the downside of allowing herself to feel again. It turned out that all those years of keeping herself near catatonic had led to her being a quite emotional person now that she was free to have actual emotions. It was...upsetting, to say the least.

Robin, however, didn't seem to mind too much. Made it a lot easier for him to read her, after all.

"I'll be fine," he told her, voice all sorts of reassuring. "I promise I'll be fine."

Raven swallowed, the doubt she was trying so hard to shake still managing to creep its way back up. "Will you?"

Robin leaned in again, eyes closed, but instead of kissing her, he rested his forehead down on top of hers, hands squeezing hers in a way that was all too careful. "As long as you stay with me and watch my back," he started. "I will be."

He said it with so much confidence, talked as if it was the most obvious thing in existence, as if it was only logical for Raven to be there, to watch over him.

He had so much trust in her that...it just...it made her heart swell.

Raven had a feeling she was blushing. She hoped he'd keep his eyes closed.

Raven reached up, her arms coming up to wrap around him and hug him close. "If...if you die on me," she started, her voice a lot less shaky than it'd been before. "I'll personally see to it that your soul ends up in hell."

Robin chuckled, the sound soft, melodious. "I was counting on it."