A/N: Okay...so, it's been just over two months since I've updated this baby. Sorry. As you can see, this is a pretty long chapter and a lot of things happen in it. Truthfully, the only reason you're getting it today is because Kysra is recovering from surgery and I promised I'd have it posted by today for her. So, here you go, Kysra! Posting it later than I thought I would be posting it, but it is Saturday, right?
Thanks: On 'emsscraps' probably tomorrow. (Maybe tonight if I don't go a-visitin', which is entirely possible...)
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Estranged
Part X: Robin
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"I don't know how you're s'posed / To find me lately / And what more could you ask from me / How could you say that I never needed you / When you took everything / Said you took everything / from me?"
- Estranged, Guns N Roses
He had been conscious enough to register the sounds of the city outside for some time, but wasn't fully awake until he turned onto his side and inhaled the scent of her on the pillows.
For a moment he remained still, his eyes closed, and simply took it in. It didn't take a master detective to figure out that she was no longer on the bed. Still, along with the scent of her, if he tried, he could just feel the warmth she had left behind on the sheets. He was perfectly aware that if he opened his eyes, he might find nothing more than the remnants of their night together and no trace of her left in the room at all.
Why would she have stayed?
They hadn't made any promises to each other. He was still surprised that he himself had not only stayed, but actually fallen asleep. He had never intended to fall asleep.
It wasn't a secret that he had had his share of one-night stands. He was quite familiar with the way that the game was played. Yet, for a moment, he wondered whether or not he was glad that she had left without waking him, sparing them both the awkwardness of the dreaded "morning after". He had never wondered about that before. Instead, he tended to be rather glad if the woman slipped out of their shared bed, and often pretended to be asleep and not notice. It was better that way. He had never felt anything other than mild relief.
So, why then couldn't he open his eyes and see the empty room? Why couldn't he face the evidence of their surrender in the hastily tossed clothing, the hotel comforters, a pillow or two that had fallen by the wayside? Would she have picked up the towel he pulled from her or would it still be lying harmlessly where they left it?
Before he had much time to consider an answer to any of those questions, however, he felt her. Hecouldn't explain how, only that he knew she was still there.
She hadn't left.
When he opened his eyes, he didn't have to look for her – it was as if he had faced her unconsciously and when his eyes adjusted to the filtered brightness of the room, he was staring right at her where she stood, back to him, facing out toward the city on the balcony. He took in the way the oversized gray t-shirt fell far enough to cover just the tops of her thighs exposing her long, shapely legs down to her bare feet. He watched, enthralled as she leaned forward on the balcony balustrade, going up on the balls of her feet and the shirt rode up, baring the edge of her white panties. He swallowed and forced himself to raise his gaze to where her soft hair, still moist from her shower, fell halfway down her back.
How was it possible to feel the need to touch her so keenly, stronger even than the need he had felt when they argued? Would he have to fight this nearly overwhelming desire to touch her every time he looked at her, even after the kind of night they'd already shared? The kind of night that would be (had been) enough with any other woman?
Would he feel this tightness in that place inside him he had forgotten existed every time he saw her?
He saw her tense and knew she'd realized he was awake. He sat up slowly, making as little noise as possible, half afraid to scare her into running. She leaned back away from the railing and although her hands tightening on the rail were the only evident signs of discomfort, she didn't turn to look at him as she once might have. That was more than enough to let him know that although she had stayed, she might be asking herself why, too.
He didn't exactly know what to do. What he wanted to do was carry her back to the bed and explore these feelings the only way he knew how, but what would that accomplish in the end? Maybe she'd stay another day and maybe it would be enough.
But, what if it wasn't?
And in the end, nothing they had done the night before or might yet do again changed the fact that when he thought about it, he was still angry at her. Just because he realized that she hadn't forgotten him, didn't mean he didn't wonder why she had changed her life so completely, as if trying to erase the memory of what they had been and especially how she had been able to do it so completely.
Richard didn't want to put on his uniform again, and since he had nothing else to wear, he stepped out onto the balcony wrapped in the sheets off the bed. It didn't occur to him what it might look like to anyone who might be able to see them all the way up on the 35th floor. He knew only that he didn't want to be Nightwing, not yet. He wanted, needed to talk to her. He could admit that now. Especially after he had found himself walking out onto the balcony instead of out the door the way he had tentatively considered. He needed to talk to her, and he knew, even without looking at the clock on the bedside table, that he wouldn't have much time left.
Raven didn't physically acknowledge his presence on the balcony and she certainly didn't look at him.
"It's a beautiful city."
Robin leaned against the cold brick of the wall, just next to the doorway and glanced at the city as the sun rose glinting on high rise windows and tall antenna. He tried for a moment to see the city as she saw it, but gave up after a few moments. He looked at this city every day of his life, afterall, and she was much more interesting to look at.
His breath caught in his throat as the still weak rays of the sun hit the planes of her face and bared the look on it to his view and as he did, for a moment, he felt the way he had when he was 16: young and full of hope and expectation. Since when had the mere sight of her brought such hope into his heart? She never had figured it out, even when he told her that she was the most hopeful person he knew all those years ago how much of his hope was drawn from her.
Had he?
Probably not.
"Only from a distance," he finally answered. He kept looking at her and not at the city at all.
"I suppose that's true of most cities, isn't it?" she asked rhetorically.
"Is that why you decided to settle in a small town like Shaver Lake?" he asked quietly, unobtrusive.
There was a moment when she almost flinched as he reminded her that he knew so much about her present life, but she didn't. Instead, she nodded. "My adviser in Med School lived in Shaver Lake when he wasn't teaching," she answered. "He helped me get a residence at the big hospital close by in Fresno and when I had my days off his wife would insist I come to the Lake to stay with them, so I got to know it pretty well."
He wanted to know more about this adviser, more about her friends, her study group, this family she stayed with, how her residency went, whether she had boyfriends or lovers—in short, he wanted to know it all. He wanted to know it all the way a jealous lover wanted the details of his love's other conquests. He wanted to figure out what was so special about this life she had lived that made it so easy for her to forget about theirs, or so good about this life that made her seem happy to hide who she was all the time in order to live it. He had to be careful of his words as he asked, however. Careful not to let the underlying feelings surface in his tone or his choice of words. "How did you end up living there?" he asked.
If she was surprised by his line of questions, she didn't show it. Instead, she looked as if she were having a perfectly civil conversation with any person she might have met at a party and not with someone she'd just had a night of hot sex with at all. "My adviser had a private practice down in Shaver Lake," she said reminiscently. "He retired from the hospital after my first year of residence and when I finished my residency at Community Medical in Fresno, he asked me if I'd like to come work for him in Shaver Lake. I chose the Lake and a year later, he retired completely and offered me the practice." She chuckled, "By then, the people on the Lake were so used to me, that it just seemed natural for me to take over the practice." She shrugged, like it was the only logical result.
Robin was quiet for what seemed like a long while, especially since he was staring at her, hoping she'd turn to look at him but she never did. He wasn't sure what that meant, if anything. He wasn't sure what he should say, either. It was obvious she was happy in this life she had chosen, obvious she was doing well and flourishing in this small town. And although he was happy for her, he hated it too. He was glad she had found happiness, and he couldn't deny how much he had always wanted to see her happy, but some dark, deep part of him missed the days when it was only him that could make her smile with any consistency.
"Happiness looks good on you."
She finally turned to look at him and he felt something like warmth go through him at the sincere smile she offered.
"I'm content," she answered. "It's a good life."
It didn't escape his notice that she didn't say she was happy – only content. Was that a conscious choice, he wondered? The Raven he used to know used words carefully and would have meant something if she chose one word over the other, but now? "Better than the one we had?"
Her smile faded and seemed to sadden, "Different," she answered. "In it's own way, even despite all the fighting, I don't think anything could've been better than what we had."
He nodded. She must have seen something in his expression because her eyes softened as she turned completely away from the view and leaned back against the ledge. "I didn't know what to say to you."
He looked up at her, surprise at her words and she mistook it for a look of confusion.
"That day, when I called you out of the blue," her voice faltered as she searched for words to explain. Her eyes kept flickering away, as if she couldn't look at him and it never once occurred to him that it might have something to do with his state of undress. "It wasn't out of the blue," she admitted.
"So, why was it?" he asked.
"I tried to come here," she spoke. "I got in my car and I got as far as airport before I chickened out." She shook her head and hunched down to lean on the balustrade. "I was afraid to face you."
"Why?" he asked, the tone to his voice betraying nothing.
"Because..." she trailed off and seemed to realize she had no reason to give.
At least none that didn't have her admitting to being afraid that like some sort of junkie she'd be left pining away for him no better than she had been years before, or, worse yet, of sounding like some love sick fool from some turn of the century romance asking him why he hadn't come for her. Now, she knew that whatever craving for his presence and friendship she might have felt before was nothing compared to the emptiness she will feel after having slept in his arms.
"Because," she sighed and tried again, "I suppose I didn't really want to know the reason why you hadn't called or contacted me for all those years." She looked up at the sky. "I suppose I was afraid you'd take one look at me and either slam the door in my face or ask me in no uncertain terms why I thought I'd be welcome back in your life and hadn't I been able to take a hint that you weren't interested in keeping up acquaintances with me."
"I didn't --" he stopped himself before he could finish, before he could say, I didn't leave you. He noticed the way her hands clenched on the balustrade and he ran his hand through his hair, exhaling. "So you called me instead?"
She glanced back at him and nodded. "I didn't know what I would say, really, I guess I thought..." she turned away and exhaled as if she were measuring her words as carefully as he was. "...I suppose I thought it might be just the way it always had been between us."
"That was impossible," he said without hardly thinking about how it might sound. He nearly kicked himself when she flinched. "We'd changed, we have changed..." he trailed off as she sighed. "Why did you think about me that day at all?" he pressed. "After so many years of silence, why that day?"
"I saw your picture," she answered, almost on a whisper. "I saw you as Nightwing and I--" she cut herself off and shook her head, as if she too were stopping herself from saying things she knew would shatter the tenuous grip of civility on the conversation. "--I got a sudden urge to see you in person." She turned and found that he had stood and was standing mere inches away from her. "Like when we were kids and I could just barely keep from running to you whenever you looked upset or worried," she admitted, the surprise of having admitted it obvious in her tone. Her hands curled with the effort of not reaching out to touch him.
"You wanted to comfort me?" he asked, his own tone low and undecipherable.
She closed her eyes and looked away. "I suppose I did."
"From what?" he asked and now he saw it as she felt his presence so close behind her. He could see the way her body reacted to his closeness, the goosebumps rising on her flesh. He might be unsure of how welcome he was in her life, but he had no doubt about her physical reaction to him.
"I don't know," she admitted. She laughed and there was no humor in it. "I didn't even read what the article said, or if I did, I don't remember anymore. It was more about the look on your face than anything else."
"What look?"
She turned around fully, leaning her lower back against the balustrade of the balcony, watching as the rising sunlight reflected off the nearby skyscrapers in his eyes. "The same look you had the first time I met you – like you'd forgotten what it was like to have a family."
Something changed on his expression, but he was too adept at hiding it and she was too insecure to read it. "You pitied me?" he asked after a few moments.
She couldn't meet his eyes. "No," she answered, turning around again. "Not pity..."
"If not pity, what then?" he pressed.
"I don't know," she admitted, uncomfortable suddenly with the line of the conversation. "What about you?"
"What about me?" he countered, watching as the breeze blew the long strands of hair around her neck. He'd always thought she had a very graceful neck. He ignored the fleeting thought that he hadn't paid nearly enough attention to her neck the night before and how that was an oversight that should be remedied. The color of her hair had surprised him the first time he saw her in Shaver Lake. He wasn't quite used to it even now, but it wasn't the color of the hair that had always drawn his attention anyway.
"What drew you to Shaver Lake?" she challenged. "Morbid curiosity?"
Perhaps it was because his musings that he was distracted, and although he heard her questions and thought to answer them, he didn't think about his answer before saying it. "I wanted to see you." He was, needless to say, as surprised as she was at his choice of answers. "I wanted to make certain you were okay," he qualified. "I wanted to see for myself why--" he stopped himself and she turned.
"Why what?" she prodded.
"Why you preferred that life to..." he trailed off and unable to say what he was really thinking, finished by motioning the city around them.
"Did you find your answer?" she asked.
"You're happy there," he said simply.
She nodded pensively and turned back to the city, lifting her face to the breeze as if she could take it in better that way. "It's a good life," she repeated her earlier comment.
Once again, the word 'happy' was conspicuous by its absence in her statement. And there was, perhaps, something in her tone, something that reminded him of the days when he was able to sense when she wasn't telling him the whole truth. So, he changed tactics. "You changed your hair."
It took her a moment to realize what he was talking about. It had been so long that she dyed her hair that she no longer really remembered that it really was a different color. She took a strand of the silky black between her fingers and looked down at it. "Yes, well, I can't very well be a normal doctor with purple hair can I?" she asked. "I went through most of college with it purple, but then I thought I best change it when I started my residency." His hand fell away and she walked the length of the balcony balustrade, putting distance between them.
"Is it worth it?"
She turned and looked at him from across the way, "It's just hair."
Their eyes met, "I didn't mean about the hair."
She smiled, "It's worth it."
"Why?" he pressed. "Just because it's quiet? Because there's no danger?" He motioned their uniforms strewn around the room behind them, "Is that really worth hiding who you are, Raven?" he asked. "Repressing your powers? You obviously miss it," he pointed out, "or you wouldn't have brought the uniform at all, let alone put it on."
He watched as the anger overtook her features and he realized, too late, that she had a right to be angry too. "Because there, I help people who don't take it for granted," she answered, her tone, for the moment, even and steady. "Because as a doctor in my 'one horse town' I make a difference that lasts for longer than the time it takes some crack shot lawyer to file an appeal or pay a bond, or some deranged maniac to break out of jail." She looked at him, her eyes seemingly begging him to understand what she was trying to say. "I make a difference there, Ro-" she paused but kept going, "Richard. I make a difference and I can see that difference around me every day."
"You didn't deny missing it," he pointed out softly.
She blinked and looked away. "I can't," she answered. There was a kind of wry acceptance on her features as she looked at the city, slowing coming to early morning life below them. "While I stood here before you woke up, I decided I was going to be honest with you: no more hiding the truth and no more hedging away from it." She looked at him and in her eyes was the challenge he recognized from before and he was once again struck by how it sometimes seemed she hadn't changed much at all. "So, no, I can't deny missing the rush of power and the feelings of freedom I get from stretching out my powers to their limits," she said truthfully. "But then again, I never really tried to," she pointed out. "I always knew that I would miss it, but it was my choice to do it and it balanced out."
"Balanced?" he challenged. "How could it have balanced out? It wasn't the only thing you gave up," he stopped to check his tone so when he spoke again, his voice was low and steady once more. "You gave up everything about yourself, Raven, you completely remade yourself."
When she met his eyes, he saw the pity there, the sorrow. "No, Robin," she said softly. "That's just it: I didn't."
"How could you say that?" he asked. "Look at you, you lead this life as if you never had another one, and to do that, you've given up a lot of things, Raven," he argued.
"I suppose," she agreed. "I did give up a lot of the things I took for granted as a Titan and the casual use of my abilities was the only one I chose." He could see there was something she wanted him to see, to realize, but he had yet to grasp it. "But I didn't give up who I was," she spread her hands to the side, palms open. "I'm still me..." She suddenly noticed her hair in front of her eyes and pulled it away. "Only with long black hair instead of short purple and with a medical degree instead of a repressed attitude." She took a step closer to him. "And if the good people of Shaver Lake heal just a small bit faster than the average human when they come see me or feel less pain when I treat a wound, so what?" she asked.
"So you do use your abilities, but you hide it, how is that worth it?" he questioned.
"Because I like my job," she answered, daring him to contradict her. "I like the people in my town. I like Maddie and Gus who have breakfast ready for me when I pass their diner in the morning and Mrs. Lonnie who bakes me banana bread every week, and Sarah, Mrs. Jenkins' daughter who has a cup of warm tea waiting for me in the winter and a cool glass of lemonade in the summer when I see her mother on my rounds." She inhaled and exhaled slowly, cocking her head to the side to look at him. "What about you, Richard?" she asked. "Can you say the same? Do you like your job? Your life?"
He turned away from her, "I didn't think this was a contest on who has a better life," was all he answered.
She scoffed. "You talk about how I've given up so much and changed so much, when the only thing I don't have now that I would want, I have no control over taking or leaving."
A bell went off in his head at her words, but by the time he turned to her and had realized he should say something to that, she continued speaking, shaking her head.
"My hair, my clothes, the fact I'm showing my emotions, all these things have changed, yes, but they're just superficial, Robin, and I thought if anyone of our friends knew that, it was you." She peirced him with her stare. "I thought if anyone knew that it wasn't that I didn't feel emotions, only that I didn't show them, it was you..." she looked away so that he only caught the quickest glimpse of sadness on her features. "I though you knew who I was, Robin, once upon a time..." she sighed and didn't give him a chance to answer. "Still...I know who I am and I haven't changed." She turned back to him, started to take a step toward him, then stopped herself. "What about you?" she asked.
He raised an eyebrow, "I don't have to like my job to know that I have to do it."
"Do you?" she challenged, but shook her head and closed her eyes, and before he could decide just what exactly she was challenging about his statement, she turned her back on him and continued speaking, "It doesn't matter, I know that you do--" she stopped herself to swallow hard, and he thought she looked as if she were swallowing back tears. She opened her eyes and there was determination in her eyes. "But you had to do your job before, too, in Jump City, and you didn't have that empty look in your eyes then."
"You got all this from a picture?" he asked sarcastically. Before she could speak, he approached her and allowed the predatory gleam to enter his eyes. "Do I have an empty look in my eyes now?" he asked mockingly.
She held firm and didn't step away from him, not falling for his bluff and looking at him as if she could decipher him if she stared at his face hard enough. "Something has dimmed inside you..." she trailed off and cocked her head to the side as if really looking at him, with more than just her eyes. He felt exposed and it had nothing to do with the fact that only his body half was covered and that with bedsheets of all things.
He shook his head, "I don't understand what you mean."
"It's like we switched roles or something." She sighed. "Richard, you used to laugh and smile, do you even remember how to anymore?"
"When did you become an expert on what I've been doing with my life?" he asked, an edge to his voice she wasn't used to hearing. "You speak like you've been around, but you haven't Raven," he walked away from her and absently tightened the knot of sheets at his waist, leaning his back on the wall again, affecting indifference. "You have no right to make any sort of comment about how I'm living my life, you lost it when you left."
She narrowed her eyes at him, "But you do have a right, is that it?" she challenged. "You have a right to make high handed comments about whether I've given up being me because you've spied on me like some coward from the shadows?"
He almost winced at her words and straightened off the wall. She runs away from her responsibilities as a superhero, from their life and suddenly he's the coward? He narrowed his eyes, about to say something, but was stopped by her warning finger pointed in his direction.
"You were a coward, Robin," she insisted as if he had spoken his thoughts aloud. "But here you are, and you keep repeating that I left and...so what if I did?" she asked. "I didn't put a restraining order on you, did I? You were the one that didn't come to me, even though you were so--" her voice faltered for a moment, betraying the true emotion beneath the anger, but she swallowed and the strength was back. "--you were close enough that all you had to do was yell and I'd hear you."
"Why should I have?" he demanded. "You left without looking back, Raven, you turned your back on everything we were and embraced this new life like it was what you had always wanted and like you couldn't get away from who we were fast enough." He shrugged. "So why should I have come to you?"
"Because you always had!" she exclaimed. She took the time of his shocked silence to gather herself, once again closing her eyes.
There were a few moments that she seemed to be waiting for a response from him, but he didn't know what to say.
"You always did, you know," she said, almost conversationally. "No matter what I did or how I said I didn't want anyone's help or attention, you always came, always found me." She opened her eyes and looked straight at him. "What was I to think the one time you didn't?"
He was honestly at a loss as to what to say. His mind was frantically trying to understand her words, decipher the meaning behind them. Had she actually been waiting for him? All this time?
"When I left," she started, her voice sounding tired, "I didn't particularly care where I was going. I valued my life because you all had fought so hard for it, but as to what I did with it, I was lost." She looked at him. "Can you imagine what it must feel like to suddenly find yourself alone at a crossroads, without knowing which way to go? Having no one to lead you or that you had to lead?" She shook her head. "Since the moment I was born, I was burdened with a destiny that I was to fulfill and my goal had been to prevent it. But when that was over, what was I?" she continued, as if she were speaking aloud. "I only had you – all of you – and when even that started to fall apart and everyone started to go their way, I was left with nothing." She looked back over the city and he approached her without giving it a thought and stood next to her against the balustrade. Almost touching.
The problem wasn't that he couldn't imagine what the feeling she was describing felt like, the problem was that he could. Hadn't he thought the same thing a million times? Hadn't he wondered what was left of him without the calm presence of Raven reminding him to be logical instead of hot headed? Reminding him what it was like to have hope?
"You had me." He clenched his jaw at once again having spoken more than he intended.
"You were already gone."
He was suddenly incredibly angry at her perception. How could she say that? How could she think that? "No," he said, for the first time since the conversation had started, speaking without thinking. "I was still there," he insisted. "I was confused as to what I'd be, I was trying to find what I'd be if I wasn't Robin of the Teen Titans," it was like the words were breaking out of him, and no matter how much he might want to stop them, he couldn't. "But just when I found what was left of Richard, you left and you took him with you." He pointed to the uniform strewn carelessly in the room behind them. "That was what was left." He met her shocked gaze and resisted the urge of gripping her shoulders in his arms, "Nightwing was left and Nightwing doesn't laugh or smile and Richard has nothing to smile or laugh about." He was almost breathless and wanted to stop, but it seemed something he was unable to do. He did manage to break the stare, however. "So if it seems as if you and I flipped roles it might be because we did...because you took everything good about me with you."
Before she could say anything, he did what he'd wanted to do since the moment he woke up: he reached out and touched her, taking hold of her arms and holding her in place, as if afraid she'd disappear on him. "I hadn't gone anywhere, Raven." He could feel her skin growing warm under his grasp and he resisted the urge to caress it. Instead, he looked down right into her eyes. "You. Had. Me," he emphasized each word in the hopes of making their true meaning clear.
The hardness in her face crumpled before his eyes, "I thought I did," she answered.
"Then why did you go?" he pressed.
She held his gaze, so close now he could see himself reflected in her irises. Her voice, when it came, was full with a sad kind of simplicity, "You didn't ask me to stay."
The words were like a punch to the gut. Would it really have been that easy, he wondered. Could he really have just asked her to stay? "And if I had?" he asked after what seemed like hours.
She almost leaned into him, but restrained herself just in time. Instead, she opened her eyes to his searching gaze. "You still don't understand if you can ask me that."
"Then explain."
"Why?" she asked, suddenly. "What does it matter? It's in the past, and nothing can change it." She looked beyond him to the early morning sun-lit sky.
He let her go and she almost stumbled, catching herself just before he touched her to steady her. He didn't know why, but he needed to know. "Please explain."
"I didn't care where I went then," she said after a while. "I didn't care because life was life, and it didn't matter to me where I lived it so long as --"
"It was away from me?" he asked.
She looked at him as if he had said the sky was green. "Do you know what it's like to feel like you're living not for yourself but for someone else?" she asked. "You say I've given up who I was, but the truth is that I didn't know who I was until I was away from you," she answered pointedly. "So, yes, it didn't matter to me where I lived so long as it was away from you." Her look of determination faltered and she leaned heavily on the balustrade. "But not in the way you're insinuating," she added as an afterthought. "It would be easy to let you think that I felt smothered by you or like I couldn't breathe around you, but the truth is..." she trailed off and hung her head. "The truth is that I felt as if I couldn't breathe without you, as if I was living only because of you--" she made some sort of motion between a shrug and a shake. "I felt as if all of you defined who I was and when I found myself losing you all, I wasn't sure what I'd find."
"I never asked you to leave," he pointed out, half numb.
"No," she confirmed. "You didn't, and you can have no idea how tempted I was to follow you blindly wherever you wanted to lead, but," she looked up and met his eyes. "I couldn't live like that, Robin--" she stopped herself and shook her head. "No," she corrected. "I didn't want to live like that--" she stopped herself again. "I was afraid to live like that." She swallowed. "I think I loved you," she admitted, suddenly, and without preamble. "And that scared me the way facing down my father never did."
For a moment, he wasn't sure he had heard her correctly. "You loved me so you ran away from me?" he asked, the first thought that came to his head.
"You loved me and yet you didn't come after me," she countered, a hint of her old unemotional mask present in the steady, no-nonsense tone of her voice.
He felt cold suddenly, and it had nothing to do with the weather outside. Some part of him wondered at how casually she spoke about love, as if she said it every day or regularly. "If you knew, why did you--" he started.
"I didn't," she interrupted. "Not until..." she trailed off and looked over her shoulder at the still unmade bed and strewn evidence of their lovemaking. "But it doesn't change anything. You still didn't come looking for me and when you did come it was just to spy on me..." she turned hurt eyes to him. "Why, Robin?" she asked. "Why didn't you let me know you were there?" she pressed. "Do you know how long I waited for you? I didn't need you to come take me away or come and proclaim your love," she shook her head. "I was happy just to be your friend, but you didn't even give me that." She looked at him, "Do you know how it broke my heart to think that you didn't come see me? Sweet Azar, Robin, I thought you -- "
"What?" he pressed when she seemed unwilling to continue.
"I thought you forgot about me."
"I tried," he confessed.
For a moment, he thought she might press as to why or question him about the fact he obviously didn't, but she only shook her head sadly and turned away once again. "So did I," she admitted softly.
When only silence greeted her answer, she turned back to look at him and they stared at each other for a few moments. Finally, she sighed and walked toward him. For a moment, he thought she might be going to him and his breath caught, but then she started to walk passed him into the room. Before he could think about what he was doing, he took hold of her arm, holding her in place.
"What?" she asked, grasping at the strands of her anger. "Why won't you just let me go?" she asked. "It's obvious this is getting us nowhere, and it's just rehashing old things we can't change anyway."
"I'm sorry."
She looked at him. "For what?"
He closed his eyes for a moment, his thumb tracing absent circles on the skin of her forearm. "For...all the time we lost."
"It's over," she said softly. He opened his eyes and let her go, not knowing what else to say.
She took two steps into the room, enough for him to wonder whether she would change or if she'd just grab her bags and leave then and there. If she went into the bathroom to change, he knew he should leave then, but he didn't think he would. He didn't want to.
He didn't know what to say to keep her, but he'd be damned if he made it any easier for her to go.
He watched her take another few steps into the room and stop. It seemed she was looking around at the tableaux they had left behind. Was she memorizing it or looking at it in disbelief?
"Why can't I walk away from you?" she spoke unexpectedly into the silence. She spun on her heel to seek his eyes. "We're not getting anywhere in talking, so why can't I just --" her voice cracked and she stopped for a moment, swallowing, crossing her arms across her chest as if to keep herself safe, "--walk away?"
The eerie closeness to his own thoughts startled him despite the fact that once upon a time, echoing each other's thoughts had been commonplace between them. He dipped his chin and suddenly, he was hidden from the sight of her by a veil of hair. He sighed and despite his better judgment, once again found himself being honest. "I don't know," he answered. He felt her shift and looked up, half afraid she was trying to walk away right then. "Why didn't I leave when you fell asleep?" he asked, meeting her eyes.
It seemed like they stood that way for hours, lost in the familiarity of each other's gaze, until Raven shivered in a stray breeze that lifted her hair in front of her face and broke the connection. "I'm sorry," she spoke quietly.
"For what?" he asked, brow furrowed at the suddenness of the apology.
"For all the things I didn't know how to say," she said slowly, deciding on her words as she spoke them. "For fearing the things I felt."
"I never blamed you," he answered. "I could never hate you."
"Even though you tried."
He walked into the room until he was standing toe to toe with her, and she, rooted to the spot, had to look up to meet his eyes. "I could never hate you," he repeated, softly.
He saw the intention in her eyes and the tensing of her body. She wanted to reach up to him, wanted to touch him as much as he wanted to touch her. "I never wanted to leave you."
"But you did," he finished, nothing but the blankness of understanding in his tone.
"It could have been so different..." she mused, almost to herself. "We've been so stupid."
He raised his hands from her arms to her shoulders, and further to her face. Slowly, haltingly, he pulled her into his arms, tucking her against his body, trying not to focus on how easily she fit there, how warm he felt as his arms wrapped around her, locking at her back, how soft her cheek felt against the curve of his throat as she pressed against him, and how her hair still smelled like warm lavendar and vanilla – the way she always had smelled.
They stood that way for moment after moment, only their heartbeats counting the minutes, and the increasing noise of traffic from the balcony reminding them that the world outside was still in motion.
"I have to go," she said inadequately, her breath ghosting across his shoulder. She pulled back, placing her hands on his shoulders and forcing his arms to drop from around her. "Check out of the hotel is today, and I still have to pack last minute things..." She started to turn around, but at the last minute, he caught hold of her hand and with a tug, brought her back into his embrace.
He brought his lips down onto hers and stole the rest of the sentence from her breath. When he finally broke the kiss, it was only to whisper, "Not yet," against her lips.
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Raven dressed with casual efficiency in the jeans and button down blouse she had set out on the hotel room chair the night before--long before she had left the room in her uniform. She didn't bother to leave the room to dress, but clothed herself mere feet away from where he sat. Watching her was like watching a reverse strip tease, but he didn't stop. It was all he could to keep still and not reach out and stop her.
He was late for work, but he didn't care. He took his eyes from her to look for his communicator. He vaguely remembered it falling with a thud onto the thick carpet of the room as he took off his uniform. He found the blinking red light before he made out the shape of it under Nightwing's skin. No doubt, the angry red light was the sign that his captain had been calling.
He didn't reach for the communicator, he didn't even reach for his clothes. Instead, he watched her move about the room from where he sat on the bed.
He knew he should get up and leave. She hadn't spoken a word since the wake up call jarred them from the comfortable doze they had fallen into in each other's arms. She had slipped out of his embrace, even though he hadn't pretended to be asleep, stood and started dressing.
He had someplace to be, same as she did. It was time to get back to their lives. Yet, he couldn't move.
At some point, he had pulled on his uniform, but the act of it had been so automatic he never really registered it, too enthralled with the amazing familiarity of her movements. He should go to work, but all he could do was stare at her as she moved, packing away small odds and ends. Toothbrush, soap, lotion, shampoo. He watched it all as if he'd never seen anyone pack before, watching her hands in movement, trying, how she pulled her hair back away from her face as she zipped her rollaway suitcase closed and lowered it onto the ground, placing it near the door and beginning to pack her carryon with equal skill.
She ran the hair brush through her long hair, taming it and twisting it with a quick flick of her wrist into a loose bun, restraining it in place with some sort of hair clip. He was enthralled by the way the ends of her hair cascaded over the top of her head like a fountain of silken tresses.
"Was this a mistake?" he wondered. He wasn't quite sure he had spoken aloud-- not until she answered.
"No," she answered, her voice soft yet the complete opposite of timid or unsure. She turned to look at him, smiling although not all the way through her eyes. "No," she repeated, firmer. "I'm glad I saw you here – I'm glad this happened, all of it."
He nodded, and when she turned away to continue her packing, he spoke again. "At what time is your flight?" he asked.
"One," she answered.
He had two hours left. Less if he let her walk out of the hotel room without following her to the airport. "I'll take you."
"No," she shook her head. "There's a car waiting," she said, busying herself with her long overcoat and scarf, her carryon bag. "The hospital arranged it all," she continued explaining even though he hadn't asked for explanations. "And," she paused and looked up, meeting his eyes, notably not looking at the rest of him. "It wouldn't be good for you to be seen with me," she said, vaguely motioning. "For neither of us," she added almost as an afterthought as she turned around to head for the door.
He was suddenly there, at her back, and she stiffened stiffened and sucked in a breath but didn't turn to him. She couldn't really, not without colliding against him, not without brushing against him.
"Stay," he spoke, feeling his voice reverberate through her.
He watched her profile as her eyelids fluttered closed and felt the slight change in her as she allowed herself to relax, leaning just slightly against him, making the space between them even less pronounced as her head fell back on his shoulder and his arms wrapped around her middle, pressing her against his chest as if he could hold her in place by sheer force of will alone. He watched her throat move as she swallowed back some emotion, or maybe her words, but her eyes were closed and he wasn't as adept at reading her expression as she had been at reading his.
He reached one hand to gently push away the stray strands of hair from her face. Her eyes clenched tighter and she straightened, turning in his embrace to face him. When he looked down at her face it was to find her eyes right on him. Her hands reached up to cup both sides of his face, her thumbs absently caressing the morning stubble of beard on his cheek. Rather than speak and break the spell, he let her explore the planes of his face, her hands moving from cheek to chin, to lips, to nose, his eyes closing as the lightest of touches caressed the outside of his eyelids. Her hands caressed his forehead with the same feather light touch, but his eyes opened in response nonetheless.
As if that had been what she was waiting for, when he met her gaze, she leaned in and pressed her lips, almost chastely to his. For a moment, he let her set the pace of the kiss and she kept it light and tentative—almost innocent. He recognized her answer in her kiss even then, but he pressed her tighter against him and deepened the kiss anyway.
When he tasted the salty tang of tears, he broke away, his own hands finding the smooth skin of her neck and cheek, watching as the tears fell from her beautiful eyes. "You won't, will you?" he wondered.
"I can't," she answered, her voice thick with tears.
He had only ever seen Raven cry twice in their lives.
"It's too late," he said.
She nodded and pulled away from him. She swallowed and although the tears still made her eyes shimmer, her voice was controlled, albeit sad. "I have responsibilities in Shaver Lake, people who are depending on me." She frowned. "I can't just leave that."
"You could," he insisted.
"I could, but I can't." she was confused by her inability to explain herself. "I don't know how else to explain it," she admitted.
Richard could feel the cold creeping back into his expression and saw the confirmation of it reflected in the deepening sadness in Raven's eyes. "You don't want to leave it, you mean."
It took several false starts before Raven decided on an answer. "No," she answered. "I don't. Not now." She exhaled deeply. "A few years ago..." she trailed off and shrugged. "But not now, not after I've made a life for myself in that city, Robin," she looked at him, almost pleading him with her eyes to understand. "I like who I am there." She glanced around her at the hotel room, and the light streaming in from the balcony doors, still open. "I can't be Raven the Superheroine again, I just can't." She motioned to the balcony doors and the city beyond. "What would I be here?"
"You would be with me."
Raven's face crumpled and she almost looked away, but his eyes held her. "Once upon a time that might've been enough."
"How could you just walk away from this life?" he asked seriously, the first stirrings of some emotion in his voice other than anger or sarcasm since they'd woken up. "How could you walk away from what we were?"
"Because it wasn't all I was," she said, hoping he would understand. "It isn't all you are either, Richard."
He scoffed. "No?" he asked. "Then what am I?"
She lifted a hand to reach for him, but stopped before she could feel him. "I think inside you're still the same boy who cared so much for us," she started carefully. "The same person who took me in and joined my cause when no one else believed in me," she said. "The one who's hope and faith kept us all together, kept us all fighting..." she trailed off, realization dawning on her features. "That's what's missing from your aura," she whispered, almost to herself. "What do you fight for, Richard? Where'd that hope go?"
"Shaver Lake," he answered, his voice steady but his tone nearly inaudible.
She sighed and leaned through the space she'd carved between them, closing her eyes as her forehead touched his chest, over the bird insignia. She could hear his heart beat through his chest, but his arms didn't go around her again. "You don't need me to have hope," she whispered. "But I can't be a hero anymore." She shook her head against his chest. "I just can't."
"Why?" he pressed.
"It's not who I am anymore," she answered.
"Who are you?" he questioned.
She sighed and the warmth of her breath battered against the polymerized armor of his uniform. She inhaled, as if drawing in strength and shifted her weight, leaving the comfort of his warmth. "A doctor."
His expression, when he met her eyes, never changed. "There are doctors in Blüdhaven."
"Where I can practice the equivalent of front line doctor medicine, 'patch 'em and pitch 'em' and worry about HMOs and PPOs and everything that has absolutely nothing to do with medicine and yet everything to do with the practice of it? No, that isn't why I practice medicine." She shook her head and looked at him again, "The people in Bludhaven couldn't care less what doctor treats them, but the people of Shaver Lake need me. They depend on me."
'I need you.'
The words perched on his lips, but he couldn't speak them. She was leaving, what would his words change except make his need all the more real?
"I--" she glanced away from him for a moment, but she forced herself to meet his expression again. "I can't be happy here, Richard," she determined. "I can love you, but I can't be happy here. No more than you could be happy in Shaver Lake."
She watched him, waiting for him to say something or do something, but all he could think to do was stand utterly still until the desire to use brute force or any other persuasive tactic he knew to keep her there passed.
"They need me just like the people of Bludhaven need you, and now," she sighed and took a moment before continuing, "me staying here would be like asking you to stay with me at Shaver Lake." She hugged herself and avoided his eyes. "Our lives and goals are too different now, Richard," she said, almost on a whisper. "I suppose it's--"
"--too late?" he interrupted.
Wordlessly, she nodded and they might have stayed that way for hours yet if not for the knock at her door. She started, "The Bellboy," she spoke, almost to herself. She went to the door and didn't think to wonder about Nightwing's presence in her room until her hand was on the doorknob.
When she looked back into the room however, he was gone and it was empty of anything except her bags and the messy bed.
She let the bellboy in and pointed out the location of her bags. When he loaded her bags onto the trolley and exited the room with quiet skill, she turned back to the room and went to the balcony half expecting him to be standing in the few shadows cast by the neighboring skyscrapers.
"Goodbye, Robin," she spoke softly to the wind, on the off chance he was listening.
She closed the balcony doors behind her as she entered the room and walked through the room, grabbing her carryon along the way, all without once looking at the bed or looking back.
"Goodbye, Raven," Robin answered, dropping onto the balcony just in time to watch her disappear as the room's door swung inward and locked closed.
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SPECIAL NOTE: This is NOT the end of the story! There is one more chapter coming and an Epilogue.
A/N: I have the niggling feeling that I either repeated myself too much in this chapter or like it was kind of boring action wise, but the truth is, it's a whole mess of dialogue, which has been a long time coming for these two.
ORIGINS: In THIS chapter is the scene that inspired the whole story. Kysra actually sent me an email with a description of a scene she could see in her head, and asked me to write a story based on that as a gift for her birthday. I spent some time thinking about the scene, and what I came up with as a way to approach it, required all this kind of set up. The scene? Well, once upon a time I had copied/pasted what she asked for in a document, but of course, I can't find it now. In any case, the scene is when Robin is on the balcony, half naked while Raven is standing by the balustrade and he's looking at her and behind them in the hotel room, their costumes are strewn over the floor and the bed is unmade. That was the scene. Out of that scene, came ALL this.
The bonus? We had talked (Kysra and I) about another image she has in her head, where they're standing and Raven is leaning back on Robin and his arms are around her from behind and her head is back against him so she could almost look up at him. I added that too.
I hope she likes the finished product. (She's been getting snippets of stuff from me during production.)
PLAYLIST: This chapter, especially, required plenty of mood music. I actually set up an individual playlist for this one chapter. Of those songs, the one that I kept playing on repeat during the final stages of editing and adding bits was:
1. Beautiful Goodbye by Amanda Marshall. (The quote at the beginning of the chapter is from this song...)
The other songs I had playing were:
1. Ne Me Quitte Pas, Nina Simone
2. Mine, Savage Garden
3. You and Me, Lifehouse
4. Ahora Quien, Marc Anthony
5. I've Got To See You Again, Norah Jones
6. Goodbye, My Lover, James Blundt
7. What Hurts the Most, Rascall Flatts
And of course, the Estranged Theme Song:
Far Away, Nickelback