angstangstangst ;)

It was midafternoon by the time Robin finished researching the destroyed power-blocking device they had uncovered. Cyborg had seen the schematic before, and with his help, Robin had tracked it to the source; an old computer repair place on the edge of town. Robin had wanted to charge in right away, but the place was shut and they didn't have an address for the owner, so he had reluctantly agreed to wait until first light the next morning. Everyone in the prison had been interviewed, and security around their kidnapping friend had been doubled, but they knew about as much as they had already confessed. They had a few other leads, but nothing substantial, and Robin found himself full of the nervous energy that always took him over when there were too many unknowns in the equation.

He stood up and stretched, leaving his papers for the moment. His head ached from too much time staring at a computer screen and his muscles screamed to be used. Worry of a different sort was tugging at his mind as well, worry about a certain empath. Last he had seen her, Raven had been meditating with Starfire, an activity she sometimes pursued when she was in a less reclusive mood. When he wandered into Starfire's room, however, she was gone and Star was engaged in play with her pet worm, Silkie. She greeted him with a smile, unfolding her long limbs from the cross-legged position she had been engaged in.

"How are you, friend Robin?"

He smiled briefly, but knew that it didn't reach his eyes.

"Frustrated. We have next to nothing on the prison breaks."

She frowned, placing Silkie on her shoulder.

"Can I be of assistance?"

He shook his head.

"Not today, but thanks, Star. I'll need you tomorrow."

"That will be fine. I am eager to help however I can."

He nodded and rubbed the back of his neck.

"Seen Raven?"

Starfire looked slightly troubled, the corners of her mouth turning down just slightly.

"I have seen her, yes. She was most…strange."

Robin felt anxiety twisting at his gut.

"Strange how?"

"I do not know. We had finished meditating and the Beast Boy and Cyborg were playing a game…tag perhaps? Beast Boy hid behind us and Cyborg then tried to grab Beast Boy, but missed and grabbed Raven instead, and then they left the room and Raven…she said she had to go and train…but she seemed…wrong."

Robin sighed. He thought he knew something about what was going on, but with Raven it was always somewhat hard to guess. She was a wildcard, especially when it came to trauma.

"Thanks, Star. I'd better go find her."

As he suspected, Raven was in the gym and dressed in workout gear, but she wasn't punching anything. Instead, she was throwing dark blasts of energy at one of the reinforced walls. Her face was expressionless, but she was shaking and her powers were bleeding out from under her feet like shadows, dying the floor an inky black color.

Robin had seen this before, and was wary of approaching her without warning. Ordinarily she would have sensed him by now, but she hadn't acknowledged his presence and seemed completely focused on the cool dark of her blows. He moved slowly around the edge of the padded wall, trying to avoid startling her. One hesitant step forward followed the next until he was standing just a few feet away.

"Raven?"

In the next instant, something white hot, then unbearably cold, had struck him in the chest. He felt the ground disappear beneath his feet, then his back collided with the wall and he saw stars. The breath left his body, and for a moment, the absence felt permanent. Once he was on the floor, it took a moment for him to get his vision back; lights flashed dizzyingly in front of his eyes for several seconds before the room came into focus. Raven, having realized what she had done, dashed to his side, concern etched on her features.

"Robin? Robin."

After a moment, he unstuck his tongue from the roof of his mouth and coughed.

"Well that was…not pleasant…ow."

She put a hand on his shoulder, holding him in place as she enveloped the other hand with glowing energy.

"I'm sorry. I didn't know anyone would be down here. Where does it hurt?"

"Chest and back…and I think you gave me a concussion."

She looked anguished, an expression Robin wasn't used to seeing on her face. "Sorry. Here."

Her hands and eyes glowed briefly as she placed them over his injuries. He grimaced, but held still as she leeched the pain from his body. When she was finished, he stood up carefully and looked at her. It was hard to tell, but he thought her eyes were red-rimmed. She responded to his scrutiny with a step backward and a defensive look.

"I wasn't punching anything."

"You were still hurting yourself."

She shrugged and crossed her arms over her chest.

"That's my business."

He massaged his right wrist, which was still sore and tingling.

"Yeah, except that you're part of a team. If you're going to hurt us, it's our business too."

She was silent, but pulled the hood of her sweatshirt as if to simulate the covering she usually got from her cloak. Robin sighed.

"Look, Raven, I need to know what's going on. You can't do everything alone."

He took a few steps closer, trying in vain to capture her gaze.

"Do you ever mind your own business?"

"Not really."

He placed a hand on her shoulder, which was a mistake born of instinct…to anyone but Raven it would have been a harmless gesture. Cursing himself for forgetting that she wasn't Starfire or Beast Boy or Cyborg, Robin knew she was going to attack him before she even threw the first punch. Ready for it this time, Robin leapt over the stream of dark energy that followed her fist and rolled out of the way. Drawing a backup staff from his pocket, he dashed aside the dumb bells aimed at his head, flipped over the bench press that followed those, and tackled Raven, sending them both flying against the mats that padded the far wall. They sank to the ground side by side and out of breath.

She was really crying now, tears streaming down her face like little rivers, and Robin was uncharacteristically quiet, waiting for her. Eventually, she wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her sweatshirt and tilted her head back against the wall. Robin didn't look at her – she would have hated that – but gave her a gentle nudge with his elbow.

"You going to tell me what's going on now or are you going to attack me again?"

Raven didn't answer right away, and when she did, her voice was thick.

"I'm still mulling it over."

Robin wanted to put an arm around her shoulders. Instead, he got to his feet.

"Well while you think on that, I'm going to clean up some of the mess."

Raven flicked her wrist, enveloping everything in black just long enough to return the equipment gently to its place.

"Sorry."

He extended a hand and pulled her to her feet.

"I've seen worse." There was a pause. "You going to make me ask again?"

She ran her fingers through the black curtain of her hair, a gesture that was normally Robin's when he was troubled. When you were an empath, you picked things up accidentally. Raven usually exercised a lot of discipline to make sure she didn't adopt the nervous tics of all her teammates, but she had literally been inside Robin's head, and it was harder with him.

"I've been doing some research. Remember our handyman friend?"

Robin's stomach clenched as images flashed behind his eyes. Raven suspended from the ceiling, cuts on her stomach, bruises on her face. Raven's eyes, blank and glistening as the factory door blew off its hinges…he shut his own eyes briefly, trying to stay controlled, but his words still came out spit through clenched teeth.

"Of course I remember. You were…God, of course I remember."

She seemed mildly surprised at his vehemence, eyes deep as she looked at him, though her voice betrayed very little emotion.

"My spiritual energy has been unbalanced ever since. I guess normal people would call it PTSD. With my powers…it's more dangerous than that."

Robin digested this, berating himself for lack of tact. If it caused him this level of pain to remember seeing that night unfolding, he could only imagine how difficult it was for her, how painful those still-fresh memories were.

"Okay."

There were a hundred questions he wanted to ask, but couldn't think of how to do it. With that trick she had of picking up on his thoughts, Raven responded to what he left unsaid, or at least he thought she was going to.

"I don't know if I should be fighting, before you ask."

"That's…actually not what I was going to ask."

She raised an eyebrow and he relented.

"Okay, I was going to eventually, but that's not the main thing I'm worried about."

"I'll bite. What is?"

He shrugged, suddenly self-conscious as he found himself tasked with the impossible feat of putting into words the feelings that mostly made his stomach hurt.

"You've…been through a lot."

She sank onto a bench, resting her forearms on the top of her knees.

"It hasn't exactly been peaches and cream for any of us, Robin."

It was his turn to avoid her gaze, and so he didn't see that she was staring just as determinedly at a dumbbell as he was at the ceiling. Still quiet, he sat next to her.

"Yeah, but the others know when to ask for help. You just stew in whatever the hell it is until you decide to break your hands or…or get black out drunk or disappear into an alternate dimension."

He glanced over in time to see her wince and felt immediate remorse for throwing her past back in her face.

"I…sorry. All I mean is that the main thing I'm worried about is you ending up dead."

She knotted her fingers together and stared at them as though they had the answers to life's mysteries.

"I um…That's fair."

She cleared her throat.

"Robin, the reason I don't ask for help is because there isn't anything anybody can do. I have to deal with my crap on my own sometimes."

A familiar frustration rose in Robins chest as he watched her rub her hands slowly back and forth, running her knuckles against her fingertips.

"But not all the time. And it is, it's all the time with you. You decide that nobody can help you because you decide you're beyond help. And that's…that just makes it so much harder for you."

She pressed her lips together, looking more tired than Robin had seen her in a long time.

"Look, all I'm saying is that we can't give you what you need if you don't tell us when you're in pain."

"Starfire makes sad-eyes, Beast Boy makes jokes, and Cyborg makes metaphors about damaged car engines," she muttered, wiping her eyes on the back of her hand. Tentatively this time, Robin put a hand on her shoulder.

"Okay, fine, I mean me. If you don't tell me."

He gave her a squeeze, then stood up, reading her body language as best he could.

"I'll leave you alone now. Just…I'm not a therapist, but I kind of think you could use one. There's nothing shameful in helping yourself out."

He was silent, footsteps muffled by the mat beneath his feet, until the door slid open in front of him. There, he paused and glanced back at her tense figure, swallowing the urge to turn back and wrap his arms around her.

"I'll make it an order if I have to."

When the gym door shut behind him, Raven sat for a long while in the descending semi-darkness.

Hope you liked, thanks so much for reviewing, etc. etc. xxxx to all of you