Written 15/6/22, published 11/11/23.
Might be OOC, but I really am not sure, since I dont know how well I wrote them.
Robin and Raven friendship centric. If you so wish, it could also be read as romance.
It wasn't that he didn't enjoy his work as a superhero, it was just that it got rather tedious at times.
At times, like these, where he was aching, black and blue all over with bruises finding its way all over his skin.
The only reason Robin hadn't collapsed onto the sidewalk in his lethargy and bleeding was because of an unbridled will to make sure he reached the Tower, or else he'd be out cold on not so comfy, pavement bed sheets.
Please, I just want to see my room...
His hands shook with a slight tremor as he punched in the password to the tower and slid inside through the gap of the door, too impatient to wait for it to open fully.
Metal tipped boots met with the tower's floor, his tattered cape fluttering behind him following his movement.
"Not so fast, boy wonder."
Robin froze at Raven's voice.
He kept his back turned to Raven in a useless attempt to hide the punctured, shredded spandex that was what once his uniform.
"Yes?" The boy just hoped his voice didn't give anything away.
Even without looking at her, he could just feel Raven's bore emanating off herself in waves.
"You really should have those wounds healed." Came her reply.
Damn, she does know..
"It's fine. It'll go away in the morning." A pause. "You don't need to waste your energy on, well, this."
"Wow. Healing my leader is obviously wasting." The sarcasm practically bled through her words.
Robin heard a sigh, and then the shuffling sound of fabric indicated that Raven had held out a hand.
"Here, I'll have a look at it."
Robin turned on his heel, now facing Raven directly in his full beaten up glory.
"Really, Raven, it's alright. I didn't get any serious injuries..."
At that, he re-surveyed his appearance. Tattered uniform, raw red flesh from where a laser gun had gotten in a hit, bruises all over, the weak shake in his step and the ruffled up hair?
No serious injuries, my ass.
The cloaked girl raised a questioning eyebrow. She really didn't have time for this.
"So, that dried blood on your skin isn't a serious injury..?"
Robin winced.
Seeing as Raven didn't seem like she was going to be dropping this topic anytime soon, Robin grumpily admitted defeat and plopped himself down onto the seat next to her.
"Even just wanting to heal you is a battle..."
Robin softens a bit at that comment. Raven was just offering help, and yet here he was refusing it.
Refusing it for the sake of what? His pride? Don't be silly...
...
He was refusing it for the sake of his pride.
He's the boy wonder, for goodness sakes! Trained under Batman! Batman!
He's the only one in this team that doesn't have any crazy, world ending magical powers or special abilities.
He's the leader of four vastly different, both background wise and person wise, buck wild teenagers.
He's the leader that needs to protect everyone.
And it doesn't go the other way around — the leader is the strongest, the one who helps, heals, takes care of others.
The ones in the team however, do not give back to the leader. They simply follow orders, and perform tasks, but they don't protect the leader.
They don't have to help the leader because the leader should be good enough to help himself or, better yet, not need any help at all!
"Robin?" Ravens voice cut straight through his train of thought.
"...Yes?" Robin's muddled brain grouped together a reply at the very last minute.
"Don't fall asleep on me." Her voice was as dead as ever, but Robin recognized it as one of her reprimands, having heard it been used on Beast Boy more than once.
"Duly noted..."
Ravens hands skimmed over Robin's own as she enveloped the angry red blotch over his skin in complete darkness.
"Azarath metrion zinthos...!"
Inky black magic stretched over the wound and healed it away, dispersing once it completed it's task.
Robin's previously gloved hands gripped the edge of the table, hard enough that Raven suspected he might just crack it.
The leader should be capable. The leader shouldn't — doesn't, have to sit down and make a team member waste energy on wounds he should've never gotten in the first place.
Callous mistakes in battle.
I'm not good enough. I have to redo my schedule, train with new masters..
But still, even with how he was berating himself on the inside, he was grateful for Raven's healing — it soothed the aching, painful itch of said bruises.
"...Uhm, thanks, Rae."
The ravenette shoots him a look. "Don't thank me yet," She answers, pointing at his roughed up torso.
"It's … It'll go away, Raven. I'm really grateful for your help, but shouldn't you be asleep?" If ever asked about this conversation, he'd firmly deny the fact he was trying to switch the topic.
"And shouldn't you be in the tower instead of going out to patrol, especially when you never assigned a round of patrol for yourself tonight?"
Robin's eyes went impossibly wide at two things : one, the long sentence Raven just spoke while usually being a girl of little words, and two, how she'd cornered him to talk about why he was out at night.
"….I'm the leader. I can and will 'assign' myself unplanned patrol if I wanted to." In his voice was a defensive tone, feeling on edge.
"That's … bad for your health." Raven shook her head and emitted a long, tired sigh.
No shit, Sherlock... But still...
Placing a hand on Robin's shoulder, she tried, (and unsure if she was failing), to give reassurance to their leader.
"Robin, you need to relax. Take time off."
"And. Look." Her powers enveloped his upper body, wordlessly healing it.
"...You need to... to find time for yourself, in between the motions of the week and what ... Keeps you up at night."
They both knew what she meant.
"In between all of this — this hero-ing, you have to find a moment to breathe."
Robin absorbed the words in like a sponge.
The ebony dark magic fully stripped away his uniform, having full access to his bare chest.
It was then that Raven could see the full extent of what Robin had suffered as a result of his sudden decision to patrol in the night.
Dried blood laced around a large gash wound from where he'd no doubt been hit with something sharp, never ending trails of purple blue black, and skin peeling off from raw flesh.
Raven cringed slightly. Robin, although wishing nothing more than just to turn away from that disgusting expression of sympathy on his teammate's usually stone cold face, kept looking in her direction.
"Who...?" She couldn't help but ask. Curiousity killed the cat.
"Petty thieves. Infestations like these also have to be taken care of, not just the big bad guys."
Raven nodded. Being a hero was to keep the city safe at all times from all sorts of crimes.
She could ponder more about that later, she decided. The ravenette refocused her attention on her leader's wounds.
...Some of these wounds are half healed.
These aren't new.
But they aren't old by any means either.
"Some of these wounds aren't from tonight," Raven observed.
Nothing on Ravens face gave away what she felt, but Robin had a pretty good guess. "And you never asked me to heal you?"
"…Why would I? Raven, it's just small scratches. It's nothing important. If there were broken ribs, or tissue damage, then I'd ask for your help."
"There's no need to waste your power on things that don't matter. Those wounds you healed would have been gone in weeks — no reason to speed up the process."
"You were irresponsible." Raven continued. "I would've healed you. You were hurt."
"It's just small wounds—" Robin's annoyance began to rise. If Raven couldn't listen or understand what he had to say, then he shouldn't even be talking to her.
"No." Raven cut through fiercely, stunning even the steadfast, headstrong leader of the titans.
"I'm not in the mood to have a debate on why your injuries aren't worth healing. Wounds are wounds, period."
Then, she softened slightly from her strong tone. "…By toughing it out, it's not going to prove who you are."
Her hand curled into Robin's.
"What makes a leader strong is … is having complete trust in a team and having your team trust you as well."
"You have nothing to prove, Robin. We know how capable you can be. We know the lengths you'd take to save us."
The grip shared by their two palms tightened suddenly.
"Therefore, when I say that you need to be healed no matter how minute the injury is, then you'll get healed. Trust me on this."
"It's wasting your powers..." Robin replied weakly, still trying to grapple on any excuse.
"They're my powers. I get to choose what I want to 'waste' them on."
The tight hold still hadn't eased up any.
The final injury on his body faded away, and Robin frowned.
He couldn't understand.
He's the leader. The ... He... His teammates should be dissapointed, Batman would be dissapointed, that he's that incapable of such a simple task as fighting without getting hurt.
It was wasting. Distateful.
He was wasting, and distateful.
His promise to protect the city — to never give into the dark, to never give into selfish desires. To be the guardian of the city he'd claimed as his own. To take down anyone who got in the way of his mission.
To be the hero.
To protect the people.
How could he, if he couldn't even protect himself?
Couldnt even protect himself, from the scars, the wounds, the slits, the blisters, the lowlife thieves who had somehow even managed to lay their grimy fingers on him.
He was the best of the best. Tailored and carved into what would become the greatest boy wonder of all time.
But those thieves had hurt him.
Had stabbed him, had thrown him aside, had made him lie on the cold pavement floor in pain.
Had made him bleed.
"I…"
"I'm not worth it."
If even possible, Raven held his hand in hers, her grip the tighest it had ever been.
"You are."
And how could Robin ever believe that?