Flip Turn

Chapter Fourteen: Enough

Something grabbed onto Robin's shoulder. "What number is this?"

"Six," said Robin, turning around to face Gar.

"Oh. I was on number four." Gar smiled mischievously, letting go of Robin to hold the wall. "I can pretend that it's six, though."

Robin had to fight the urge to tell him that no, he couldn't pretend it was six—he wasn't allowed. He couldn't skip eight laps, a full quarter of the set, and think it was okay. But he could. Because everybody was allowed to break rules except for Robin. He didn't know why, but he did know that if he'd pushed Bruce in the pool last week…well, he didn't want to know what Bruce would have done to him.

At least he wasn't still in trouble for cheating. He'd apologized, and that was all he'd had to do. Except, the way Bruce kept looking at him, Robin figured that he was still mad, even if he wasn't going to punish him for it. And apologizing had hurt because he was still pretty sure that he hadn't done it on purpose, though Bruce seemed so sure that he was beginning to wonder.

It was time for number seven before Robin had time to think of a good answer for Gar, so he pushed off the wall and told himself that he had four laps to think about it. Gar wasn't really supposed to be in his lane—Robin kept lapping him—but he'd refused to be in a lane with girls, especially girls named Jade and Kitten. Robin didn't really care who was in his lane, except he wished that Gar would swim a little closer to the lane rope so it would be easier to go around him. It didn't matter who was in his lane; all that mattered was doing what he was supposed to do. And that meant that he somehow had to swim two more one 100s.

He did a flip turn and cringed as his feet missed the wall, quickly deciding that not touching the wall would be worse than turning around to touch it. Not touching was cheating, and the last thing Robin wanted was for Bruce to think he'd cheated again.

Robin finished the set first, several seconds in front of Wally and Karen. He was faster than Karen, and he could always beat Wally at practice. Though it wasn't fair that he couldn't ever win where it mattered, in a race—he didn't know why, but races were harder. Races made his stomach hurt. Especially after Coach Slade… Robin shivered and stared at his toes.

"That was the longest set ever. Like, in the history of the world."

Robin pretended that he couldn't hear Wally, not looking up. It was far from the longest set ever, and he knew that for a fact, and he wished that people wouldn't say things that weren't true. He knew how to read workouts, and he'd seen what Bruce did every day—and this wasn't even close to the longest set ever.

Wally poked his knee. "Cat got your tongue?"

Reluctantly, he dragged his head up to look at Wally. Nobody should have a smile that big after swimming eight hundred meters, and anyway, Robin was tired, and he didn't feel like talking. "No," he muttered.

When Wally answered, it was in a voice that he'd never used before. Ever. "You know what?" Eyes narrowing, Wally hauled himself out of the pool, sighing dramatically. "Alright, this is your last chance. Tell me what's wrong. Tell me what's been wrong. Tell me what the one-eyed maniac said to you to make it wrong. And if you don't wanna tell me, tell somebody, 'cos it's gonna explode out of your ears sooner or later if you don't!"

Robin blinked at him. He tried to come up with something smart to say, but all the good things had been pulled out of him right when Wally had said that it was his last chance. "I—umm—no," he finally managed, not even sure if it answered the request. There had been a lot of different requests, and one word probably wouldn't be good enough, and he really wished that Bruce would give him something else to swim so he wouldn't have to keep talking.

"Fine." Wally shrugged. "Suit yourself, Smarty Pants."

He didn't do anything else, or even say anything else, just slid back into the pool and started talking to Starfire about how long he could hold his breath underwater. But Robin had a feeling that he wasn't finished with whatever he'd tried to talk about. Maybe he would forget, but Wally only pretended to forget things, not like Terra and Gar who actually forgot.

There were twenty more minutes of practice, and it seemed like twenty hours because Robin couldn't stop worrying about whatever Wally had decided. After they'd finished swimming, Bruce made everyone listen to him talk about Divisionals—and told them that this definitely wasn't the last time they'd hear him talk about it.

"So, it's basically the most important swim meet ever?" asked Terra, sitting on the middle starting block and hugging her knees.

"Not exactly." Bruce wrapped Terra's towel around her shoulders. "Just the most important meet of this season."

Terra stared blankly back at him. "That's practically the same thing as ever."

"It just means that it's against all the teams, not just one," Raven supplied, then looked hesitantly up at Bruce for approval. "Right?"

"Exactly." He smiled at her. It made Robin kind of sick.

"Yeah, and you score points at Divisionals—so we have to beat all the other losers this time—and if you're really fast you get to go to Championships, and if you're really faster you get to go to Classics." Kitten's eyes got big and shiny. She loved to talk about winning, and especially about being the best.

Gar raised his hand. "How faster do you have to be?"

"Way faster than you'll ever be," Kitten muttered.

"You don't have to worry about that right now, Gar," Bruce said. He gave Kitten a look, changing his tone sharply, "And I heard that."

Kitten tried to glare back at him, but it only lasted half a second. You couldn't glare back at Bruce. It wasn't possible.

"Now, unless anyone has more questions," he continued as if he hadn't been interrupted, "I'll see you all tomorrow morning."

"Yay, no more practice!" Gar yelled, then deflated as he seemed to suddenly realize that that wasn't a very good thing to say. "…I mean, boo, no more practice."

Robin didn't feel like being harassed by Komand'r and her friends, so he decided to get far away from the older kids before they showed up. It was hard to make himself breathe slowly when he walked past Bruce, more than half afraid that he was going to be in trouble for missing the wall on the seventh 100.

He ended up having to hold his breath after he managed to whisper, "I'm going to go do my homework, sir."

Bruce nodded, starting to say something but never finishing because he had to go pull Komand'r away from Starfire, and then he had to demand to know what had happened, and then he had to make Komand'r do pushups for trying to yank out a fistful of Starfire's hair…and at least he didn't have time to yell at Robin for missing the wall.

He didn't really have homework, not in the summer—at least, not that he had to do, but Robin did it anyway. He liked math because it was easy and there was always just one right answer, every time. Besides, at least he was the best at math—he was pretty sure that none of the other kids his age could do algebra yet—and maybe if he kept trying until he was better than even people who were as old as Grant…maybe then it would be enough. It was kind of hard to concentrate, though, because Robin kept glancing over at Bruce every few problems, hoping that it really would be enough.

Swimming was important to Bruce, though, maybe more important than math—and Robin wasn't the best swimmer. But he had to be the best swimmer. He thought about what Kitten had said about scoring and Classics and winning, and wished that he didn't know as much as he did about all of those things.

He'd almost finished the third page when a familiar hand fell on the side of the table, and another gently took his pencil away.

Robin felt his head snap up, already wondering if he'd made some awful mistake and now Bruce was going to have to fix it for him. "Yes, sir?"

"Robin, we need to talk."

The words made him shudder. Talking meant lectures. "Don't you have to watch the big kids swim?"

"Practice is over," said Bruce. "And we need to talk."

When Robin looked, he realized that, yes, they had taken the lane ropes out of the water, and the pool had shifted back into splashing and screaming and bored lifeguards. But his watch said that practice wasn't supposed to be over for ten more minutes—and Bruce never forgot what time it was.

There was only one way to explain it. Robin must have done something really, really bad, if Bruce would cut practice short just to talk to him. He couldn't think of what it was, but it must have been bad.

Taking a deep breath, he nodded and got up to follow Bruce, walking past Wally, who looked confusingly like he had right after he talked the concessions lady into giving him all the leftover candy, happy and successful, and a nervous Vic.

The tennis courts didn't have any people on them: it was way too hot for tennis, even in the afternoon. Bruce indicated a bench in front of the metal fence, and Robin sat without a second thought, trying to distract himself by wondering how many inches were between the bottoms of his feet and the ground. But when Bruce sat beside him, the surprise knocked all of the distraction right out of him. This wasn't the way things happened. Bruce wasn't supposed to look this—afraid.

"I'm sorry," Robin offered, staring at him and trying to figure out how mad he was.

Bruce sent him a disbelieving look. "You're what?"

"You had to end practice early to talk to me. I'm sorry for messing you up," he stated. And for whatever I did to make you end practice early in the first place.

"Robin, you didn't—" He sighed, stopped abruptly and shook his head. "That wasn't what I wanted to talk to you about." Bruce turned slightly, touching Robin's shoulder and moving him until they were face to face. "What did Coach Slade say to you?"

There was no more air in his lungs, and he felt himself gasp but that didn't help, and he tried to scoot away from Bruce, but now there were two hands on his shoulders, and Bruce's eyes were wide and definitely still afraid, maybe even more afraid.

"Robin. Breathe," he ordered, voice calm—but the wrinkles in his forehead betrayed him. He was anything but calm. But somehow, it helped anyway, and Robin could breathe when Bruce told him to, and slowly the glass eye and the cold voice faded entirely. Bruce didn't say anything for awhile, as if he were afraid that Robin would forget to breathe again, but finally he repeated the question, a lot softer.

"He—he said that—that—" Robin shook his head, feeling his throat get tight, and he knew that yelling wasn't allowed, but suddenly he was doing it anyway. "Why should I tell you what he said? You don't even like me!"

Bruce blinked, which looked completely wrong all on its own, but his face showed absolutely no sign of understanding. "Robin, what on Earth is that supposed to mean?"

He glared, and Kitten hadn't been able to glare earlier, but for some reason, he could. "You don't like me anymore. You only like Raven, so you should just worry about her instead because she's all that matters anyway!"

"How could you possibly think that I—"

"You hugged her," he accused, feeling all the betrayal of that day resurface as if it had happened five minutes ago. "You hugged her, so you like her more—and before that, she got what she wanted even though she just threw a tantrum, and she didn't ever have to do things she didn't want to do, and you don't care that any of the other kids break rules and—" Robin took a breath, blinking away tears. "Is it because I'm not fast enough, so you found somebody else who was?" He waited passively for the answer, knowing what it would be and wishing it would never come.

For a long time, there was no answer, just Bruce looking more upset than Robin had ever seen, including the day that Raven went underwater and threw a tantrum. And then he said some things, some things that Robin didn't really hear because he was too busy focusing on the arm around his shoulders, and how that made everything better and worse at the same time, and then he didn't hear because he was crying. For a little while, he tried to make himself stop, but it was like when you leaned over the deep end too far, and you were going to fall in no matter what you did. And when Bruce picked him up and held him, he realized how much he'd been shaking, even though he couldn't possibly be cold, but he didn't let himself think about that, just stopped trying to make the tears go away.

After awhile, he realized that Bruce was saying things again, and he'd stopped crying enough to pay attention. "…Don't know where you got that idea, but you have not been replaced, by Raven or anyone else. Robin, I—" The arms tightened around him. "No one could ever replace you."

"But Raven's—"

"Don't argue. No one could ever replace you."

It was simple, absolute, and more like Bruce than anything he'd said in the past fifteen minutes, so Robin was able to lean his cheek into Bruce's chest and listen to the slow, steady beat of his heart, and focus on making his own breathing right again. Somehow, it was enough.

"Okay," Robin whispered, closing his eyes.

He felt Bruce take a breath before he slowly repeated, "What did Coach Slade say to you?"

Robin hadn't been able to say it before, hadn't even been able to start, but for some reason he could say it now, sitting on Bruce's lap and not allowed to argue about being replaced. "He said that he was sorry about my—my parents, except I don't think he was really sorry at all, and he said that—" He stopped and had to remind himself that he was here, he was safe, there was no eye. "—That if I won the race, there would be consequences, and…and Bruce, did you really not tell me about a disgrace?"

"Disgrace?"

"Did my parents do something…bad?"

Bruce stared down at him, moving Robin slightly so he could look him right in the eyes, in the same way that he always did to make sure that Robin was telling the truth. "I have never lied to you about your parents, Robin. And I never will."

He nodded, fighting the urge to look away. There was nothing scary about the eyes, but…it was almost too much. It made Robin feel about two inches tall sometimes. "So Coach Slade was wrong?"

Bruce's eyes did look a little bit scary, then—somehow, Robin knew that the anger wasn't for him, but it was still hard to look at. "Yes. He was very wrong. And I'm going to make sure he knows that. But first, you need to tell me exactly what happened."

The words reassured him where the look hadn't, and Robin squirmed out of his arms, reminding himself that he was too big for this—though he stayed on the bench, and didn't protest when Bruce's arm wrapped around him again. He didn't know why it made the story easier to tell, but Bruce was huge and strong and it made him feel safe, and he wasn't being replaced, and Slade was wrong.

"Robin? Can you tell me?"

Robin smiled. "You give really good hugs, y'know."

He told him everything.