(A/N)- Bit of a trippy one. I didn't know what to do with this prompt at first and then things suddenly just kind of clicked into place.
Enjoy!
RobStar Week 2021, Day 4 - Survivors
He was falling through a black void, wind rushing up past his head, fluttering in his clothes. There was a familiar kind of terror latched around his heart, thrilling through his veins, mingling with the weightless sensation in his stomach.
The ground suddenly slammed into his knees; Robin threw his hands out to catch himself as he heard a sharp gasp rise from an unseen crowd.
Disoriented, Robin shook his head, raising his eyes to see himself sitting in a pool of white light, between the broken bodies of a man and woman. Blood seeped out from under their twisted limbs, spreading across the circle of light and slowly staining it red.
Oh, he thought, a dull numbness taking him now. This again.
He'd seen this scene play out dozens of times, in his dreams, behind his eyelids, tracing through his memories on a bad day.
Was this a dream then? He wasn't sure. It definitely didn't feel real but he would have normally woken up by now.
Water leaked from his eyes, dripped off his cheeks, almost involuntarily. Robin bowed his chin, sirens echoing in his ears, the flash of his circus costume in the corner of his vision. He wished he could feel something besides dull grief.
A soft sound suddenly whispered under the sirens. Robin's brows pinched and he looked up again, peering into the darkness beyond the spotlight.
It sounded like... crying.
He hadn't moved from his kneeling position, but now the spotlight and the circus were somehow behind him, and a tiny figure was huddling in a corner of the void, shivering and sobbing.
Concern touched him, and he reached out a hand, placing in on the figure's small shoulder.
A round head with red hair popped up, big green eyes shimmering with tears.
"Are you okay?" he asked, his voice young and boyish, a child's voice, full of innocence.
The girl just whimpered, burying her face again, curling up tighter as the sound of distant explosions rumbled through the walls.
He looked around, seeing the others cowering in the shadows, strange men and women clinging to each other and to the walls, which shook and vibrated with every muted blast.
Above their heads somewhere he could glimpse rows of observers, a hundred blank, featureless faces covered with white masts, beady blank eyes staring down at them.
Robin smiled bravely, turning back to the other child.
"Hey, it's okay. I lost someone too," he said.
The sniffling stopped and the girl raised her face, wiping her eye. "You did?" she asked.
He nodded, and then extended a hand out to her. "Come on. Let's go find them."
She took his hand, her fingers orange and warm, and let him guide her to her feet. She moved shyly, nervously, the purple fabric of her costume with its big green jewels and wide silver bands and short cape like his rustling softly.
They turned as one towards the formless shapes ahead of them in the void. Rubble blocked their path and ships streaked low overhead.
"It is dangerous," the girl warned him.
He squeezed her hand tighter. "I know."
They ran.
Dangers appeared and disappeared like exploding firecrackers around them, laser blasts from the bombers above, buildings bursting open, a metal polearm stabbing towards their heads. They tripped over the arm of a dead body once, and scrambled up the debris that had buried it.
On the other side the streets were dingy, dimly-lit by grimy lamps, empty save for scuttling shadows and the echoes of mad laughter. The blank faces watching them seemed to grow more prominent, each white mask an eerie moon in the reddish sky.
They swerved around the visage of a hellish clown, moving down another street as the void grew dark once more. They couldn't see, but they seemed to know where they were going, their hands gripping stronger as their strides lengthened, their footsteps changing from the light step of shoes to the steady thump of boots.
In time with their heartbeats sounded the clank, clank, clatter of gears, and hissing steam burst from a pipe to their left, casting a new circle of white light ahead of them, where an imposing shadow loomed.
Robin froze, his breath catching, blood freezing momentarily in his veins and turning him to ice. He pulled up short, and then Starfire did too as his anchoring hand jerked her back.
The faces leaned in closer, like eager vultures.
He knew he should do something, fight, run, keep going, but the taunting orange and black mask leering out at him pinned him in place like there were a dozen spears crisscrossing through his chest and he couldn't move, couldn't—
But then Starfire was moving ahead of him, stepping in front of him, her hands glowing. Wordlessly she shot her starbolts into the shadow, shattering the face of Slade like so much obsidian glass.
The whole void seemed to break apart, cracks splintering and tearing and the dull, dream-like feeling of reality crumbling away until they were uncovering their heads, immediately and coldly alert, blinking in the harsh white spotlight of the court with the masked owl observers now clearly staring down at them from their perches.
Robin's eyes narrowed into a glare. Taking up a place by Starfire, he squared his shoulders defiantly.
"Nice try," he said. "But we've both lived through way worse than your mind games."
"How unfortunate," came a fluttering twitter from one of the faces, sounding only mildly disappointed. "It appears you cannot be convinced. Therefore, as a threat to our endeavors, you must now be eliminated."
Starfire moved to block him, fury in her glowing eyes, shielding Robin from the glare of the mask she had decided was the speaker.
"You will greatly regret such an attempt, if you take it," she warned, growling low, every syllable promising violence.
The mask sniffed haughtily. "I'm sure."
Robin readied himself into a stance, watching the bodies above for movement.
-TT-
When they made the final tally, the bodies hidden under the sewer pipes of Jump City numbered at least in the hundreds, some of the remains as old as the city itself.
Despite the Court's best efforts, Robin and Starfire—and the fifty or so high-ranking members that attempted to mass suicide rather than admit defeat to two teenagers—were not among them.
Against the odds, they lived.