"So the main focus is being completely focused on yourself. One of the misconceptions of meditating is that your mind needs to be completely clear and free of thoughts in order to be at peace with yourself, but that's not true. Meditating is all about allowing yourself time to acknowledge the thoughts you have and be mindful of them." Raven explained gently, her eyes resting shut.
"You know I've meditated before right?" Robin asked, meeting her tone not wanting to disrupt their peace in any way.
"Yeah, but I also don't trust that you did it right." She cracks open a single eye to arch a brow at him.
"We couldn't all be raised by monks." Robin mutters teasingly.
Raven slaps her hands palm down into his extended hands sharply enough to reprimand him but with no real malice. "We're going to give you time to focus on yourself first, we'll see what I can pick up on, then we can try focusing on me and see what you can pick up on, and depending on how that goes we'll see what we can do together."
"If you're supposed to be focusing on your thoughts, how come you speak your mantra while you meditate?" Robin asked. "Isn't that distracting?"
Raven shakes her head. "I use it as a grounding technique to center myself, and it helps me focus on counting my breaths in increments. Breathe in for three seconds on Azarath, hold the breath for three seconds on Metrion, exhale for three seconds on Zinthos."
"Grounding technique?" Robin inquires, arching a brow behind his mask.
"A lot of the time when im meditating my emotions can overwhelm my thoughts, I have to use grounding techniques in order to stabilize myself and keep myself balanced so the emotion doesn't overwhelm me completely." Raven explains.
"How often do you have to do this?"
"You're asking a lot of questions for someone who's meditated before." Raven noted, her tone smugly amused.
"I was asking more about you than meditation in general." Robin rolls his eyes under the mask. "Besides, you're teaching me how to do it right, remember?"
It's Raven's turn to roll her eyes. "Yes, that's why we're starting with your meditation, not mine." She dismisses his attempts to pry.
"Alright," Robin sighs in resignation. "Tell me how to start."
Robin shuts his eyes automatically, having seen her do so dozens of times before in meditation. He shifts his weight on the floor of the roof, rolling his shoulders to straighten out the slouch that had formed in his back. He cranes his neck in either direction, making sure it won't become stiff while they're focused. He shakes out the tension in his arms, settling them back flatly, palms pointed skywards underneath Raven's once again, awaiting instruction.
"Simple," Raven's voice is even. "Don't pay attention to me, just allow your mind to wander like it would when you're alone with your thoughts. I won't say anything unless you want me to or it's time to swap focuses."
"What am I supposed to think about?" He asks.
"Whatever comes to mind." She shrugs. "Don't force anything, just let your thoughts come naturally and see where they take you."
Robin sighs, steadying his breath and trying to listen to her advice. She might have been slightly right about not meditating correctly before, but he didn't completely want to admit that to her. His thoughts weren't something he cared to focus on more than he had to, more comfortable just living in the moment and letting his body do and react in whatever way seemed natural at the time. He preferred to keep his thoughts rational, instead of emotion based, something he had picked up from Bruce over time. In a way he figured Raven could relate to this, albeit more intensely than he could. Her emotions could trigger earthquakes and level buildings if left neglected, the worst he could do was leave a hole in the drywall.
It's hard to let himself focus on his own thoughts, often when he does they tend to shift dark quickly. His own remorse and regrets of cases unsolved, and perpetrators unrestrained. It was so hard not to let them linger on Slade. The main reason Raven had even suggested they started working on group meditation was due to a result of his hyperfixation on the man. Raven had given him space the week following his rough hallucination spell, and though he appreciated the time to collect himself, he couldn't help but feel an air of awkward tension between them now. He could understand why, to an extent, he wasn't fully comfortable with everything she'd seen in his head when she's broken through to help him, but to an even stronger degree he was grateful. He'd felt mad, beyond crazy, the aggressive realism to the delusions straining his brain more and more as he felt his friends lose trust and faith in him. He'd been manic, the only way to describe it, and even though Raven breaking into his mind had been a distracting nuisance in the moment, it had overall made him feel less crazy that she'd been able to see him too.
After the week had passed and she seemingly didn't intend on cutting the distance between them short any time soon, he made the first move, catching her alone in the hallway, asking if she was alright. She'd tried brushing him off with her usual response of "Fine." but he could feel the sensation of a burden weighing heavily on her. He mentioned as much to her, her eyes watching him intently behind the shelter of her hooded cloak before she relented with a sigh, her body relaxing slightly as the breath left her lungs. An odd sensation tugged on his brain then, something he hadn't noticed until she relaxed. It felt like a rubber band stretching behind his eyes, an odd tickling sensation washes over his brain and he flinches slightly at the feeling.
"Do you feel that?" She had asked him, eyeing him warily.
He'd nodded, blinking frantically behind his mask trying to sway the dizziness that accompanied the sensation.
She sighed, her eyes closing tightly for a moment before turning so she didn't have to look at him directly as her eyes opened tightly with remorse. "I'm sorry."
"What?" He asked frowning, the rubber band snapping back quickly and the sensation was gone.
"I thought…" Her eyes shut again and her brows knitted tightly together as she grimaced. "I thought I was helping but," She shakes her head. "I think I fucked up, I'm sorry."
"Fucked up?" His confusion grew at her words. "What do you mean, what was that?"
It took her a moment to respond, her eyes stayed shut as she considered her own words. "When I was trying to find you, and I asked you to let me see what you were seeing I thought it would be temporary… I didn't think it would stay like this and now I can't…" She falters, her breath a little shaky as she tries to control her emotions.
"Hey, it's okay." He assures her, reaching out a hand to rest on her arm lightly.
"It's not." She shakes her head sharply. "It can't be. I…I'm sorry." She repeats, pulling away from him.
He watched her walk away from him, down the hallway and towards the comfort of her own isolation. As much as he'd wanted to follow her asking for more answers, he respected her too much to try and pressure her or invade her space at that moment. He'd tried prying enough from her for the time being, he would just have to talk to her more later. Strangely, it didn't take him long to feel the odd rubber band snapping against the back of his eyes again, this time less intense but a sense of erraticism followed it. An image of a dark room continued to flash through his thoughts as he'd tried making his way to the common room. Random blips of specific colors crossed behind his eyes, making him almost dizzy until he heard the faint familiar words drift into his ears.
"Azarath…Metrion…Zinthos…"
Robin flinched, jumping to look around the hallway searching for the source of his friend's mantra but the hallway remained empty. He was certain he'd heard it, not as clearly as he was used to hearing it, an obvious distance and echo following behind the words, but it was there.
"Raven?" He called out to the hallway, hoping he was just missing her obvious presence.
A silence followed his words, no response from the demoness or anyone else nearby and Robin frowns. He stood still in the hall, bracing himself against the wall and tried listening for the mantra again. He tried focusing on the rubberband behind his eyes that seemed to be some sort of key to whatever he was experiencing. His focus on the floor in front of him grew blurry and distorted as he thought about the flashes of color he had seen and the dark room connected to them. The harder he focused, the more he could faintly hear the mantra, along with what sounded like multiple other voices chittering faintly like a distant auditorium of people. A weird trickle in the back of his head tells him to call out to her again so he does aloud but the action feels wrong.
"Raven?" He tries again, this time allowing the word to drift through his mind instead of passing through his lips.
The auditorium suddenly becomes silent, a faint echoing of their voices fading away from his ears and he frowns at the sensation. He feels awkward then, as if multiple sets of eyes are resting on him even though he's still isolated in the hallway. The chattering resumes, even quieter this time, and the weird weight he had felt from Raven earlier trickles through his thoughts again. Could this be what she meant when she said she had fucked up? He could barely tell what was even going on, and yet couldn't help the wave of deja vu that passed over him as he felt a sensation uncomfortably similar to the last week he'd been through with Slade. The disconnected but familiar voices he was confident he heard, but nothing visual to show for it.
"Robin!" He hears her voice suddenly loud and clear over the voices in the auditorium and the rubber band snaps quickly out of his mind, leaving him with a disoriented sense of sobriety as his head clears up.
"Hey," Raven's nearby voice startles his thoughts and Robin jumps, his eyes flashing open to look at the titan in front of him.
"Sorry," She apologizes at his reaction. "Just wanted to check in."
He blinks at her, his thoughts slowly coming back into the present as he refocuses on his surroundings.
"Yeah," His voice comes out unexpectedly winded.
"Anything you want to talk about?" She offers, pulling her hands out of his and folding them in her lap.
Admittedly, his answer is yes, but a lot of what he wants to talk about revolves around what they're already working on trying to resolve. They had never really talked about a lot of the logistics to this bond, just that it was something they were going to have to get used to, for better or for worse. So far it hadn't been all bad, but it was still incredibly jarring, occasionally getting flashes of images or ideas he wasn't entirely sure came from his own head. When she had finally worked up the courage to talk to him again she had only told him the vaguest details, just enough for him to know what he was working with, but not nearly enough to understand the scope.
"If you want, I can start with what I picked up on." Raven's voice is gentle, and she watches him with soft eyes.
"Uh, okay." He nods awkwardly.
"I noticed that your thoughts almost immediately went to Slade." She started, her eyes dropping down to her lap. "I could tell the thought made you angry, but not as much as it used to."
"I'm trying to come to terms with him really being gone." Robin admits.
Raven nods. "I understand. He was so strong, and as much as we don't like to admit it he was smart. It's hard to think something could really take him down so easily."
Robin shook his head grimacing slightly. "That's another thing I have to come to terms with, is that I'll never be the one who gets to bring him down."
"You lead us to the path that did though." Raven argues.
"Did I? Or did Terra?" Even without the rubber band bond to aid him, Robin can feel the tension swirl in the air at the mention of the blonde.
"Can't it be both?" Raven suggests. "Terra made mistakes, but you knew Slade well enough for us to get the upper hand in battle. Even if we couldn't save her life, I think we helped her save herself, just as much as we saved her from Slade."
He considers her words, staying silent when he doesn't have a response.
"I also heard you think a lot about our conversation…" Raven continues, after giving him a moment. "I think it's only fair for you to ask whatever questions you have. I'm sorry I couldn't answer them sooner."
He watches her as she continues to stare down at her hands, fiddling with them in her lap. Her expression remained soft and gentle, but he knew her well enough to see the nerves occasionally trickling over her demeanor. She was giving him the unspoken permission he didn't realize he'd been hoping for, and now that he had it he couldn't think of a single question to ask. He knew he had them stored somewhere in the disarray of his thoughts, but it was hard to pinpoint one to start with.
"How strong is it?" Robin asked slowly, thinking of each word carefully as it came out.
Raven's eyes slowly rose to scan his masked face for a moment, thinking herself on what to say. "I'm not sure." She admits. "Stronger than I originally thought it was going to be."
"Can I ask…" Robin falters slightly, unsure whether to continue with his question.
"You can ask anything." She urges him. "I'll try my best to answer."
"What…" He falters unsure how much he really wants to know how much she's been able to see. "What did you see…about me…?"
She blinks, her brow arching slightly. "I don't think I know what you mean."
"Whenever you…made it… it felt really weird, like shaking up a bottle of water and oil, the two mix but still slide against each other and separate as they settle. When you made the bond it felt like the bottle shook, and everything that had been settled got mixed up with it." Robin explained.
"And everything that got mixed up was your life before the titans." She continued, her words coming out more as a statement than a question.
Robin nods, and she does as well, acknowledging that she understands his question better.
"I know your name…but I'm going to be honest I've known that since Larry." Raven starts.
"What?" Robin can't refrain his surprise.
"Nosyarg Kcid?" Her expression is unimpressed. "It's your name backwards, Dick, come on."
Her casual use of his name sent a jarring shock through his body and his mouth fell open slightly.
"I haven't told any of the others." She reassured him. "I don't plan to either, and as far as I could tell none of them took notice."
Robin nods, accepting this. "It's short for Richard, by the way." He mutters awkwardly.
"I can't tell you how relieved I am that your name isn't legally Dick." She says flatly. "The jokes just write themselves with a name like that."
Robin huffs out an awkward laugh.
"I saw your face…" Her tone falls back to its serious flat nature. "I saw you in a cave?"
Robin's eyes flick upwards as he recalls through his memory. He'd spent many nights in that cave with Bruce, both in and out of their respective disguises. He felt inclined to ask for any other tiny details that might ease the nerves settling in his gut at the thought of both him and Bruce's identities being compromised, but getting the answer to that question felt like a double edged sword.
"I saw you before the titans." She confirmed his fears in one fluid sentence, and his body tensed. "Briefly saw a circus tent?"
"Don't ask." Robin's voice comes out tighter than he means it to, but Raven nods accepting his response.
"I won't pry into anything you're not comfortable sharing." She states simply. "And I hope you know I have no intention of handing out the information to anyone else without your consent."
His teeth chatter slightly with the remainder of his nerves, but he trusts more than anyone else that she's being honest.
"Can…I ask you about what I saw?" Robin asked hesitantly.
"What you saw?" Raven's eyes lock with his in surprised confusion.
"Not like you saw with me, but when we talked in the hallway." Robin explains.
She blinks but nods for him to continue, obviously confused but interested in proceeding with the conversation.
"I saw a lot of darkness," He started, his masked eyes coming up to meet hers. "I think it was your room, but there were random flashes of color that seemed out of place."
Raven's eyes soften and he nods, the pieces connecting together as he speaks.
"I heard a lot of voices, it was really overwhelming and hard to focus." Robin stops as he hears her snicker quietly.
"Sorry, I'm not laughing at you," She says quickly, the traces of a smile still gracing her face. "You're describing my meditation."
"What?" Robin returns her confusion.
"I forget you didn't break into my room like Cy and Beastboy did a while back." She smiles to herself. "So those flashes of color you saw were likely my emotions. It's hard to explain, but the way I'm able to keep such a tight control over them is the way I've, for lack of a better term… organized them. Each emotion has a designated color."
Robin's surprise is palpable. He processes her words, his brain immediately making a note of how interesting that is. It makes sense, and it sounds like a Raven thing to do, and if he's honest it sounds like something he would do. A wave of amusement washes over him and he can't help the snicker that falls from his lips. Raven turns her confused expression on him, her previous smile dropping flatly.
"I'm not laughing at you," He repeats her words with a smile. "It's just… you color coded your emotions." He chuckles.
Raven's expression softens and she offers him an amused smile. "Yeah, I guess so."
"That's just such a good idea." He laughs, and her smile grows slightly.
He noticed a faint color tinting her cheeks and she dropped her gaze from his back down to her lap. "If you're interested, we can try focusing on my meditation now…you might be able to get a clearer picture of them."
"Okay." Robin grins, straightening his posture and extending his hands out to her again, palms up.
"Okay," Raven agrees softly, her hands sliding back over his. "So this time, you're going to try and focus on me. This should be easier than your experience in the hallway, the proximity should help, along with us both being open minded to the connection."
"You didn't tell me any of this when it was my turn." Robin notes.
"Because you didn't need to focus on me then. The idea was you focused on your thoughts, and I focused on your thoughts. Now you're doing the same thing I was doing to you. I'm going to focus on my thoughts, you're going to try and pick up on them." She explains.
"Wait," Robin pauses. "Could you hear anything in my head?"
"Hear anything?"' She repeats. "I could only hear your voice."
"Do your emotions have your voice?" He pauses. "Don't answer that, I already know that was a stupid question."
Raven chuckles. "It's not a stupid question. They do, that's probably what you were hearing that overwhelmed you. It overwhelms me sometimes, that's why I have to do this so much."
"What if I get overwhelmed trying to listen to your thoughts?" He asks warily.
"Then we can stop. Just let me know you need a break and we can stop." She answers gently.
Robin nods and then remains silent, watching as her eyes slide close gently and she begins to breathe slow and steady. She remained silent, deciding against her mantra for reasons unknown to him. He closes his eyes too, almost forgetting their intentions for being here and tries keeping his mind focused solely on the girl in front of him. He tried to follow her breathing pattern, slow and languid. He could feel the heat from her hands against his, the way their crossed legs bumped knees slightly at their proximity, and a weird crackle of energy that seemed to flow around her.
Thinking back to the hallway, Robin tried to focus on the elasticity he'd felt in his head that had led him to the chorus of voices. He couldn't feel it currently, only the physical sensations of Raven's body near him. He could hear the sound of the crashing waves of the ocean in the distance, rising and falling along the shore of their island, the lazy gust of wind of the afternoon breeze that billowed their capes around them, and the occasional cry of the beach birds passing by their location on the roof. He decided to focus on the sound of the languid waves, allowing the peaceful sound to lull him into ease as he waited on some sign to their connection.
Raven's breathing stuttered, and Robin heard the shallow intake of breath she took before she began quietly whispering her mantra to herself.
"Azarath…Metrion…Zinthos…" Her voice remained low.
She repeated her mantra in slow spaced out increments and as she did he slowly felt the band begin to stretch across his eyes and he immediately centered his focus on it. He focused on her mantra as she spoke, hoping the more attention he gave certain aspects of her, the easier the connection would get. It felt like he was right, as he was rewarded with a faint whisper trickling in his ear but he couldn't make out anything legible. A flash of pink and a flash of grey seemed to appear in odd patterns behind his eyes, he wondered if those were quick glances of the emotions she'd mentioned and if so which ones the colors were attributed to. He tried focusing harder, trying to make out any of the words he could hear faintly rummaging around between their heads.
Warm flashes seemed to wash over his body as images of the sun and the crashing waves below them flickered behind his closed eyes. He felt the weird sensation of being watched again, and he had to restrain himself from opening his eyes to search out the offender. The feeling of being watched gave his body chills, then slowly eased as the warmth of the band reassured him that the audience around them wasn't malicious. A flicker of green and red interrupted the pink and grey pattern and Robin wondered if he was seeing flickers of himself reflected through Raven's thoughts. The deep forest green color became suddenly more vibrant behind his eyes, the intensity of it mingling with the overwhelming sensation of eyes bearing down on him.
"SPY!" He heard Raven's voice echo through his head, and he felt his body jump at the intrusion automatically.
He feels something snap sharply across his forehead like a throbbing headache and he winces, trying to keep his attention in check.
"No…" A flicker of yellow reassured, their tone drawling out inquisitively.
The yellow mixed with the green in interesting pulsating increments, the yellow eventually overcasting the green, though a small creeping of grey caught in his peripheral. The feeling of watching the colors behind his eyes was fascinating. It wasn't nearly as overwhelming as it had been the first time he'd seen them by accident in the hall. It was almost like watching a light show with its own vitality. The yellow obscuring his vision was suddenly split and mixed with the pink he'd seen earlier, warmth washing over his brain and body.
"It's Robin!" Raven's voice was light and full of joy in a way he'd never heard before.
"This is different…" Yellow notes. "Can we…?"
A similar throbbing pressure builds along his skull uncomfortably.
"Don't do that." A familiar deep blue splash reprimanded and the pressure immediately subsided.
"Can he hear us?" Flash of grey.
"He might." Blue says.
"Hiiiii, Robin." Pink rings loud and clear.
Robin feels inclined to reply, but decides on keeping silent like Raven had done for him. He didn't want to interrupt anything she was focusing on as long as he didn't feel like anything was going wrong.
"So it worked?" Yellow remains prominent.
"A little too well." A flash of orange he hadn't noticed before chides in sharply.
"Will it stay like this?" Grey frets.
"It might." Blue's tone remains the same.
"Fix it!" Grey cries.
The chatter begins to grow as the voices start to overlap and it becomes harder to make out independent words. The colors swirl in random colors in his head as their voices struggle to be heard over the mob. He couldn't tell how many there were in total, the way they blurred together and the way the voices mingled, it sounded infinite. Even with the rationalizing and organization she'd done with her emotions to keep them in check, he couldn't fathom how she could withstand mitigating so much energy so often. The colors colliding together became almost nauseating and no longer the thrilling pulses they had started as.
"Azarath…Metrion…Zinthos…" Raven's voice aloud cuts through his thoughts briefly and the chittering in his head slowly starts to quiet.
Raven repeats her mantra again and the voices simmer down even more. By the third time she repeats it the colors have all settled to a more stable murmur. He slowly begins to understand what she had meant earlier about her mantra being a grounding technique. If the voices and colors were nauseating for him, he couldn't even begin to imagine how intense it felt for her. But the steady flow of her breathing, and the vibration of her voice through the air gave him another sensation to focus on that allowed his mind to ease.
"What are we going to do?" Yellow and Grey speak in unison though Grey's voice is much quieter.
"We're working on it." Blue's voice is calm and rational, her color drifting into vision to cover the grey and slide smoothly against the yellow.
"This?" Orange snaps.
"Well I'm taking suggestions." Blue collides with Orange.
"I think it's great!" Pink insists brightly.
"It could be worse." Yellow notes. "Could be useful."
"What about…" Grey grows suddenly vibrant and a vision of red crosses through his mind and he can feel the other colors physically tense in his head.
The red flash seemingly has no voice, and no heat that any of the other ones come with, it feels idle and intimidating while still actively watching.
"She's not a problem." A multitude of colors reassure, though their response seems to make Red sizzle.
"I know who iiis though." Pink's sing-song voice cuts through the tension, an odd flash of purple he also hadn't noticed before trickling into view.
"None of that." Blue says firmly and Pink laughs vibrantly overlapping the purple from view.
"You can't ignore that forever." Yellow mutters.
"Yes we can!" Grey disagrees.
"Can we focus?" Blue sighs exasperated followed by Raven speaking her mantra aloud.
"What should we be focusing on?" Yellow inquires.
Purple and Pink take turns trickling giggles through Robin's ears, a deep green haze seemingly surrounding them both. Grey, Blue, and Yellow all seem to be convening to the side in an unamused cluster, Orange and Brown merging in the distance, almost forming a cohesive singular color.
"Is this going to be manageable?" Blue replies, Grey mixes in closely.
"Depends. Do you think he can feel it?" Yellow trails off, the pinch and stretch behind his eyes beginning to throb again.
"Yes." Robin decides to respond, hoping his voice comes through as gentle as he imagines it.
Grey screams, her vibrancy overwhelming his vision for a moment but Pink, Yellow, and Green slowly swirl along the edges swaying her tension away slightly.
"Sorry," Robin says again, aiming to be even softer this time but he's not sure how to control the volume of the voice in his head.
Pink's laughter rings loud in his ears as she greets him, trying to gain his attention. A weird mixture of yellow and purple seem to hum in amusement as they spiral around pink. Then suddenly the rubber band snapped, all of the voices, colors, and warmth leaving his head altogether at once and Raven snatches her hands out of his. Robin's eyes open, incredibly disoriented seeing the titan in front of him grimacing, her eyes still shut tightly, her hands clenched into fists in her own lap.
"Raven?" Robin calls aloud gently.
Raven's eyes flash open to look up at him, an erratic intensity behind them that makes her look almost unrecognizable, before she shuts them tightly again.
"Sorry," Her voice rasps. "Give me a minute."
"Do you need me to leave?" Robin asks, feeling bad pushing more questions on her but wanting to aid her however she needed.
"No, just… try and stay out of my head for a second." She requests.
Robin nods in compliance, watching her awkwardly unsure what to do if she didn't want him to leave. She begins her mantra again, her voice low but slightly shaky as she focuses on herself. Robin feels the draw of the band tempting him to take a peak, but he decides against it, looking away from her. Even though he's not invading her head he still felt like it was intruding by keeping his eyes on her. He pulls his hands back to settle in his lap and looks out across the water, watching the way the sun dances across the horizon, reflecting the light back onto the city around them. It was still early enough in the day where the ease of peace still drifted through the breeze. He was grateful for the lack of alerts they'd had the last week, not sure how well his brain would be able to deal with the strain of another overdrawn long winded battle with whoever was feeling brave in the night.
"Okay," Raven speaks again, her voice still raspy but more stable. "Sorry about that."
"It's okay," He reassures her easily. "You alright?"
"Yeah," She carefully brushes her hair away from her face. "Just overwhelming."
Robin nods. "I can tell."
"Do you want to tell me what you could pick up on?" Raven asks, her expression composed.
"It was kinda cool, really interesting." He notes. "I saw the colors again, I heard your voice a lot but it sounded different in a lot of ways. There's like a really weird tight pull in my head and the more I focus on it the better I can hear you I think."
Raven nods in acceptance. "I was curious how it felt for you."
"I couldn't pick up on anything visual, it just felt like random colors behind my eyes, like a kaleidoscope." Robin continues. "The more I focused on them the easier it got and the better I could hear them."
"Interesting." Raven notes.
"Can I ask what the colors mean?" Robin asks hesitantly.
"Which one's are you interested in?" Raven returns.
The question confuses him slightly, he had assumed she would just rattle them off like a list. Then again their perceptions of the colors might be completely different, so in a way it makes sense for him to offer the question and for her to explain.
"I saw pink and yellow alot." Robin starts.
"Pink is happiness, Yellow is knowledge." Raven replies easily. "Pink is overwhelming sometimes, sorry about that."
"Don't be," He insists. "You're allowed to have feelings."
Raven huffs out an amused scoff. "Easy for you to say. Anything else?"
"Green?" Robin asks, thinking back. "It kind of hurt when I saw them?"
Raven smiles, "That's Bravery, she's intense. Sorry about the pain, she was trying to literally kick you out of my head."
"She kicked me through the bond?" Robin gawks.
"Yeah," Raven chuckles. "She doesn't like the intrusion."
"I think the yellow one- Knowledge," Robin corrects himself. "Did something too, I felt a little bit of a headache."
"It's weird to describe but she was pulling on it, kind of testing its strength." She replies.
"How strong does she think it is?" Robin asks.
"Pretty strong," Her tone is laced with remorse. "If you can feel a physical response to the mental stimulation it's probably pretty heavily strewn together."
"It doesn't always hurt." He reassures her. "So long as no one is trying to kick me in the face."
"I have…ideas…on what we can do about it… if you're interested." Raven offers.
"I'd love to hear them." He says, his tone light.
"So, number one is likely the hardest option, but I can carefully unweave the connection. It might hurt a little, for both of us, and it might kick up more information that you don't want me to see." She starts. "Option two, we keep practicing with sessions like this, we get better with being able to respect each other's mental distance and how to control it, which will also take a lot of time… and a lot of trust…"
Robin nods, considering the options. "Option three?" He asks.
"Option three is we just ignore it, but I can already see that being easier said than done. I don't know how often my thoughts leak into your head but I can hear yours more often than I'd like to admit."
Fear and embarrassment wash over him at her words and as much as he wonders what she means by that, he thinks it's better that whatever it is remain unspoken between them.
"I think I prefer option two." He decides hesitantly.
Raven pauses. "You can think about it more if you need to. If we proceed with option two and you change your mind to option one it's going to be a lot harder the stronger the bond gets."
Robin nods, he'd definitely be mulling the options over quite a bit even after their session today.
"You can still ask any questions you have." Raven offers.
"Grey is your fear right?" He asks, thinking back to the colors once again.
"Mhm," She affirms. "She's a little overwhelming too, very clingy. We have to constantly rationalize with her."
"Are any of them not overwhelming?" He wondered.
"Green and Yellow aren't nearly as much as the rest. Orange isn't so overwhelming as much as she is sneaky, she slips out a lot."
"Which one is that?" Robin asks curiously.
"Ah," Raven chuckles. "A bitch to say the least. She's a lot of my ruder thoughts."
"Oh my god," Robin laughs. "That's what I've been hearing?"
Raven arches a brow, offering a silent question.
"They were never clear words, just like vague thoughts of irritation at people or things. Beastboy really irritates you huh?" Robin continues between his laughter, smiling in amusement.
Raven flushes, her smile faltering slightly. "I'm sorry I've been negatively influencing your thoughts."
"No, no, it's okay." He reassures her, reaching out instinctively to lay a hand on her arm. "Now that I know what it is, it's funny. I've never been that irritated by him but he really gives off an annoying little brother vibe."
Raven huffs out a breath, her face softening in relief slightly. "He wouldn't be the worst brother to have." She admits. "But god does he need to shut his mouth sometimes.
Robin's laughter trickles through the air again lightly.
"I should still be sorry for influencing your thoughts," Raven continues seriously. "I should have better control."
"Raven," His other hand moves to clasp one of her hands. "This is as new to you as it is to me, you can't be expected to have immediate control over something you've never experienced… you've never experienced this before right?"
Raven's eyes are fixated on their entwined hands as she shakes her head no.
"Then don't be so hard on yourself." He smiles gently at her.
Her eyes leave their hands to peer up into his face, color flowing into her cheeks, and she nods in resignation.
"I'll try." She agrees, softly.
"Good." Robin approves. "Was there anything else you wanted to try?" He offers the question this time.
"Actually," She pulled her hand out of his grip. "If you wouldn't mind, I think I need some time to meditate alone alone."
Robin tried not to let the disappointment show on his face as he held his grin and nodded in acceptance.
"Not a problem." He agrees. "Is there anything I get for you or do for you?"
"No…Thank you though." There's a brightness behind her eyes. "I'd…like to do this with you again…sometime…"
"Me too." Robin's smile meets his eyes again as he stands to leave her.
He makes it a few steps towards the door before he hears the familiar mantra and the faint tugging behind his eyes. He does his best to ignore it, trying to respect Raven's space, both physically and mentally now. Though as hard as he may try he couldn't help but hear the faint echoes of pink, purple, and grey that swirled through the air behind him.