Chapter Text
On her first night, Raven dreamed of Trogaar’s voice, echoing its threat of absolute destruction over and over until the words lost all meaning. It came from everywhere and nowhere, filling the dark with that terrible certainty she had come to recognize in beings who believed destruction was inevitable. The certainty that everyone else would suffer because of it, that she would be standing at the center of the disaster when it arrived.
It felt eerily familiar; she had been here before, caught between a threat she didn't fully understand and the uncomfortable knowledge that somehow, in some way, she was connected to it. Dangerous things had a way of finding her. Or perhaps they had always been following her, waiting for the moment they could no longer remain buried.
She could feel their energies - Robin and the others. Determination. Fear. Urgency. The desperate need to act, to do something, to fix what was broken before it was too late. Raven saw Robin standing against it, looking at her, and she found herself wondering how long it would be before another threat arrived. How long before something escaped. How long before history repeated itself.
She woke up startled. It was still dark outside. She pressed a hand against her chest and waited for her heartbeat to settle. Now that she had healed some, she could feel the minds of the others scattered throughout the tower.
One of them wasn't asleep yet, still working. She could feel his restless optimism from here.
-
On her first full day, Raven met the others.
The hurricane still clung stubbornly to Jump City, wrapping the coastline in sheets of gray that blurred the horizon into nothing but sea and sky. Waves crashed against the rocks far below, sending white spray into the wind, while thunder rolled somewhere beyond the clouds.
Raven stood quietly before one of the tower's large windows at the end of the hall. She hadn't intended to wander far from the medbay; she had only wanted to stretch her legs, to prove she still could. She wanted to see the sky after days of freezing water and endless rain. The warmth of the tower had chased away the worst of the hypothermia, but it hadn't erased it. Her body still felt heavy, stiff from weeks of exposure, every movement accompanied by a dull ache.
The navy sweatshirt Robin had loaned her mostly fit; the two of them were close enough in height that it didn't swallow her completely, though it nearly hid the athletic shorts she was wearing (of which she can only assume belonged to the alien girl. Robin had said her name was Starfire). The clothes were comfortable. They would work while her own were drying, wherever they were.
She watched rain race across the window until hurried footsteps echoed down the hallway behind her. Raven turned just as someone rounded the corner far too quickly, and a green-skinned boy barely caught himself before colliding with the wall, sneakers squeaking across the polished floor.
For one awkward second they simply stared at one another. He hurried forward and thrust out his hand with complete confidence. "I'm Beast Boy," he said.
“Beast Boy?”
He grinned. “I turn into animals.”
“I recall."
He was younger than Robin, she thought. Or at least seemed younger. His face was open and expressive, impossible to read because he seemed to broadcast every thought before he had decided whether he wanted anyone to know it.
Raven looked down at the offered hand. Carefully, she reached out and shook it. "...Raven."
“Raven!” He repeated excitedly, and in a blink, the boy was gone, replaced by a green bird. He cawed once before turning back. "It's nice to officially meet you."
"...Likewise."
Beast Boy rocked back on his heels. "So," he said, studying her with open curiosity. "You're the girl from the invasion, right? Robin's going to freak out when he finds out I talked to you before he did. He's been waiting all morning."
A small crease formed between Raven's brows. "He what?"
"He’s been looking for you for, like, forever."
There was something almost absurdly casual about the way he said it.
Before she could respond, footsteps approached, and Robin appeared around the corner. "I told you not to - "
His sentence died the moment he noticed Raven standing by the window, the tension left his shoulders so quickly it was almost visible. Relief, genuine relief, simply because she was standing there. "Hi."
"Hi."
"How are you feeling?"
"Better."
"You sure?"
His concern was immediate and completely unhidden. Raven wasn't used to that; most people either concealed their emotions or amplified them, but Robin simply wore his on his sleeve.
She gave a slight nod. "I'm still sore."
He looked her over, not in the detached way Cyborg had during his examinations, but carefully, making sure she was actually standing under her own strength.
Raven looked away, feeling warm.
Suddenly, a new voice played over the intercom. “Grass Stain, I swear to God, if you - “
"HELLO, NEW FRIEND!"
Whatever Cyborg had been intending to threaten, his voice was drowned out by the arrival of the alien girl.
Robin physically flinched. "Starfire," he hissed without turning around.
She had flown around the corner, radiant despite the dreary weather outside. She landed lightly in front of Raven, her emerald eyes shining with unmistakable excitement. "You have awakened!" she exclaimed, clasping her hands together. "This brings me enormous joy!"
Robin rubbed his eyes through his mask. "Star - "
"I have wished to thank you ever since," she continued earnestly. "Your bravery and kindness were most inspiring."
Raven wasn't entirely sure how to respond to someone thanking her for something she barely remembered doing. "You're welcome?"
Starfire beamed.
Robin sighed. "...Alright." He stepped between everyone with the practiced efficiency of someone already accustomed to managing chaos. "Everyone out."
“What??” Beast Boy threw his hands up.
"Just... give her some space."
Starfire nodded immediately. "I understand." Then she smiled warmly at Raven. "We shall become magnificent friends." With that promise, she floated off.
Beast Boy followed, though not before offering Raven a cheerful wave. "See you at breakfast, Rae!"
“Raven,” she tried to correct, but he was already gone.
Robin waited until they disappeared around the corner before exhaling through his nose. "I'm sorry about... all of them. They're just..." He searched for the right word. "...Excited. We’ve never really had someone new show up like this.”
Raven considered that. "Yeah?"
Robin smiled despite himself. "Yeah. And they mean well."
"I’m sure," she said, a faint smile tugging at the corner of her mouth.
Robin blinked. For a second, he almost forgot what he'd been about to say. He cleared his throat. "I mostly came to check on you. And to make sure you knew," he leaned lightly against the window beside her, "no one's expecting anything from you, and you can stay as long as you’d like.”
Raven gave a single, quiet nod.
Robin returned the nod before pushing himself away from the window. "Now," he gestured toward the hallway. "I believe Cyborg made breakfast."
He started toward the door. "Oh,” he stopped suddenly.
She looked up.
"If you’d rather sleep in a real room, there’s a spare down the hall that’s empty.”
Raven blinked. "You'd… do that?"
"Sure, if it helps you feel more comfortable. You’d have your own bathroom, and I’ll get Cyborg to install a lock.”
A door that would lock… from the inside?
“And by the way,” he said over his shoulder. “If the others get to be too much, the roof is usually empty.”
-
On her second night, Raven dreamed of the faint magical residue some of the hospitals carried. Tiny remnants of magic lingered in certain rooms where impossible recoveries had taken place. They clung to chapel benches where desperate prayers had been whispered. To newborn nurseries where lives had begun against impossible odds.
She wandered through those fading impressions, recalling the countless nights she had spent slipping unseen through hospitals across the county, never staying long enough to be noticed. She remembered the familiar exhaustion that always followed, the way every healed injury settled into her own body for a fleeting moment before disappearing, the crushing fatigue afterward, the relief that made every ounce of it worthwhile. Small hands finally unclenching. Parents asleep beside hospital beds after nights spent waiting for bad news that never came. Monitors slowing into calm, steady rhythms.
No applause. No recognition. Only silence.
Exactly as she preferred.
Sure, healing had always cost her, but not in ways anyone else could see. There was pain, but it passed through her after a few moments, and then it faded. What remained was exhaustion, but the relief was worth it.
Then -
Raven dreamed of the arrogance that exhumed from Robin when she made the near-fatal mistake of appearing out of North Glenn right in front of him. She had wanted to curse; she had been so careful, timed it so perfectly, but there he loitered in the alley like he belonged there, like there was no question that he belonged wherever he stood. Arrogant.
Robin. She had known his name for a long time. Child prodigy, partner of Gotham’s vigilante. He looked older up close, not just athletic but lean, disciplined, the kind of posture that came from relentless training; he carried himself like a soldier. She couldn’t sense any fear or revulsion; if he knew what she was, he hid it well. But she doesn’t expect anything less - he’s probably been training to defend against empaths and telepaths his whole life.
They all must have. The Justice League.
She had felt the judgment beneath their restraint, the quiet calculation of what she might become if she lost control. When the refusal came, it was delivered like policy, and now Batman’s apprentice stood in the only place she allowed herself to do something unambiguously good, which meant this meeting was not accidental. Of course it wasn’t. And yet every emotion she could sense from him had been genuine.
Had it been a test? If he had come to confront her, to warn her off, to deliver the League’s final judgment through softer hands, she would not give him spectacle. She would not give him a display to report back.
Robin was alert in a way that suggested readiness without aggression. He wasn’t intimidated, he wasn’t posturing either, and he did not radiate suspicion. Did he truly not see it? Or had he been trained well enough to hide his reaction? If he feared her, she would know what to do with that. This neutrality was worse somehow, and it made her uneasy. Hope was far more dangerous than rejection.
And yet, he had not interrupted her inside. He knew what she had been doing, and he had allowed it, had waited until she finished. If this were about exposure, she would not be standing in an empty alley, and he would not be here alone.
So she studied him the way the League had studied her. Young. Determined. Human. She herself was close enough to pass, if she kept the hood up and her emotions buried, close enough to pretend, but he was the real deal and so was Batman.
She studied his face, searching for deception, for manipulation, for hidden angles, and found none. What he offered was simple, even if terrifying: a place to belong, without conditions she could not accept. Monsters were predictable, but people who cared were not.
If this was surveillance, it was subtle. Perhaps this meeting was not about containment. Perhaps it was about something else entirely: he might be here to trust her.
And Raven was absolutely certain she had no idea what to do with that.
-
He had been looking for his book for two days before he realized he had left it in the medbay. Virgil’s Georgics. Alfred’s. One of the few things he had brought with him from his former life. But he couldn’t find it there. Maybe Raven had taken it to her bedroom when she moved across the hall, to a room with a real door.
He stood outside for a moment, considering knocking, but thought better of it; she was asleep, and he could wait. Besides, he already knew how the story ended.
He had been reading about Orpheus and Eurydice. Orpheus descending into the Underworld, singing until the dead wept, being offered the impossible thing he wanted most with an impossible condition attached to it; don’t look back.
Dick always thought he understood why Orpheus did it. Love made you afraid, so you reached for proof. But lately, lying awake with Raven sleeping somewhere down the hall, Dick found himself wondering about Eurydice instead. Had she been frightened when Orpheus found her? Had she even wanted to leave? Everyone assumed the world above was salvation, that being brought back was a gift, but what if Eurydice decided the Underworld was where she belonged? Maybe she feared the world above no longer had a place for her; after all, being brought back wasn’t the same as belonging.
He knew something about that, too. After every version of himself he'd left behind, there had always been a moment when he wondered whether the person he'd been could actually follow him into whatever came next. Could you change your life without abandoning yourself?
Maybe that’s why Raven reminded him of Eurydice. Not because she needed rescuing, but because she had already lived somewhere no one else could follow. She had a distance to her that wasn't shyness or loneliness; Raven's silence felt older than either. Sometimes Dick caught her staring through a window at nothing in particular, and there was something in her expression that made him wonder if she was thinking of a place miles away; a place she had left behind, or a place she expected to return to. He never asked. Instead, he watched the way Raven sat at the edge of the team, close enough to be included but never quite close enough to need anyone. He watched how she accepted kindness with the wary patience of someone who hadn't decided whether she was allowed to have it.
And sometimes he wondered whether they were all making the same mistake, if others kept acting as if Raven needed someone to pull her into the light. Maybe she didn't. Maybe she just needed someone willing to stand there without demanding she come closer.
That was the part of the Eurydice story Dick couldn't stop thinking about. Orpheus had loved Eurydice enough to descend into the dark, but when it mattered most, he couldn’t trust her there. He needed to see her. Needed proof. And in the end, that was what lost her.
Raven didn't need someone constantly checking behind them, asking if she was following, asking if she was okay, asking her to prove that she was still the person they thought she was. She needed someone who could walk forward and trust her footsteps behind him.
From inside the room came the faintest shift of fabric; Raven turning in her sleep. She wasn't waiting for anyone to bring her home. Maybe she'd spent her whole life trying to decide what a home even was.
And maybe that decision had to be hers.
He left the book where it was, or wherever Raven had taken it, and then he walked quietly back toward his own room. He didn’t look back once.
-
During her third night, Raven woke up to the most terrible sound she thought she had ever heard. Red light flooded the bedroom she had moved into.
Then footsteps thundered down the hallway. “Everybody up!” Robin was calling. “We’ve got a situation!”
Doors opened. Voices overlapped. Equipment clattered.
Raven pulled on her sweatshirt and stepped into the hallway.
Robin nearly ran into her. He stopped short. “You okay?”
His eyes flicked over her face anyway, checking for the exhaustion she insisted wasn't there. “We've got an emergency downtown,” he explained. “Chemical plant explosion. Fire department's already on scene, but there's still people trapped inside.”
Raven nodded once. “I see.”
“You want to come?”
“What?”
“You don't have to,” he added. “You're still recovering. But... you were pretty impressive last time.”
Her first instinct was to refuse. The second was worse; she wanted to go. She wanted to know what it felt like to stand beside them instead of watching them disappear through the Tower doors.
So she nodded.
-
The mission ended at sunrise. The smoke from the chemical plant had thinned into gray ribbons against the morning sky.
“I didn't think it would feel like that.”
Robin tilted his head slightly. “What did you think it would feel like?”
She had expected fear. She had expected the pressure of other people relying on her to feel unbearable. She had expected herself to lose focus, to make a mistake.
Instead, when everything had started falling apart, her mind had become strangely clear. There had been people in danger. There had been something she could do. So she had done it.
“I thought it would be overwhelming,” she said. “But…” She stopped, searching for the right words. “It gave me something to do.”
Robin’s expression softened. "You were incredible tonight."
The others thought so, too. Starfire had hugged her without warning, Cyborg had congratulated her, and Beast Boy had tried to imitate the way she had moved the debris and had nearly fallen over. They had treated her as though she belonged with them, as though there was nothing strange about what she had done.
Raven's throat tightened. She hated that, hated how easily these people had begun finding cracks in the walls she'd spent her entire life constructing.
Raven looked down at her hands. She could still feel the energy there, the darkness that had poured from her palms. It had wrapped around burning metal, lifted collapsed ceilings, held shattered walls together while people crawled beneath them.
She remembered every terrified face. Every hand reaching for another. Every person who had looked at her - not with fear, but with hope.
Maybe I could do this again. Another mission. Another person in danger. Another choice. Maybe she could keep choosing. Maybe whatever darkness lived inside her did not erase the things she did with it. Maybe she could be more than the worst thing she feared.
She had spent her whole life preparing for the end of the world. Maybe, for the first time, she could start imagining what came before it.
Robin nudged her shoulder. “So.”
Raven looked at him. “So?”
He was smiling at her. “Have you ever had a donut before?”
-
“I’m beginning to understand your team,” Raven said on the morning of her fifth day, watching the sun rise on the roof of Titan’s Tower.
“My condolences,” Robin took a sip from his mug. “Mind telling me what you’ve learned?”
“Do you do a lot of reading, Robin?”
He looked surprised by her question. “I did when I was younger, but not so much any more. Mostly boring stuff.”
“Boring?”
“Classics. My - I had a family member who insisted.”
Raven drew her knees to her chest, resting her chin. “Starfire reminds me of Anne from Anne of Green Gables,” she started, speaking slowly. “If Anne had fallen from the sky.”
“Oh yeah?”
“She feels wholly and without apology,” Raven continued. “She insists the world can be a better place, and somehow she makes that insistence feel like fact rather than fantasy.”
Robin nodded. “And the hair.”
Raven tilted her head in agreement. “Beast Boy reminds me of Don Quixote: earnest, absurd, and painfully sincere in his battles against things that might not deserve such devotion. And he laughs too easily.”
Raven knew that his humor was to negotiate with pain by pretending it was part of the joke. What unsettled her was not his silliness, but the unwavering way he kept choosing hope even when it clearly did not choose him back.
“Cyborg is the easiest,” Raven continued. “Jekyll and Hyde. Not because he’s divided into good and evil, but because he doesn’t fear either side. He manages the shift between them with grace, as if any imbalance might tip him into something irreversible. He endures both sides in tandem and with great discipline.”
Robin nodded in total agreement, and then cleared his throat. “What about me?”
Raven felt her ears warm. “The Count of Monte Cristo.”
A man rewritten by isolation and discipline, every action measured against an old wound he rarely named aloud. He moved like someone perpetually balancing justice and vengeance on a blade’s edge. Raven understood the structure of him (control built over chaos) but she also recognized how exhausting it must be to live as both prisoner and warden of one’s own past.
Robin almost never sat still. He bounced his knee while reading, spun pens between his fingers, balanced on the back legs of chairs, somehow walked into rooms already talking - he was motion disguised as a person.
She didn’t dare say any of this out loud.
“So,” Robin continued naturally, smiling. “You like to read, Raven?”
She nodded.
And the next day, she found Robin and Cyborg in the garage building a bookshelf.
-
"Have you talked to Raven much lately?"
“Oh, yes! Friend Raven and I have spent much time together."
"She doing okay?"
"She is improving."
"Improving?"
"Yes. The evenings seem less difficult for her now."
"What do you mean?"
"Oh. Perhaps I was not supposed to say that."
"Starfire."
"Friend Raven has not been resting well since her arrival.”
-
“Found you."
Raven glanced over her shoulder. Robin was stepping through the roof access door carrying two mugs.
Raven looked back out over the city. “If this is about mission reports, I already finished them.”
"It's not that,” he said too quickly, and then he just stood there.
Raven glanced sideways. Robin was rarely still without purpose. Even when he was resting, there was usually a sense that some part of him was moving ahead, planning the next thing. Tonight, he looked like someone who had rehearsed an approach and lost confidence in it halfway up the stairs.
He sat next to her, setting both mugs between them. Eventually, he leaned back on his hands. “I know I told you the roof is usually quiet, but I didn’t expect you to spend so much of your time up here.”
Raven took a sip from her mug. "I like it up here."
"I figured," he glanced at her. “But I didn’t figure you would be up here all night, most nights.”
Raven eyed him suspiciously. “You said I wouldn’t be monitored.”
"I wouldn't call it monitoring."
"What would you call it?"
Robin smiled sheepishly. "Noticing?"
Raven shook her head, hiding a smile behind the rim of her mug. "You notice a lot."
Robin exhaled through his nose, like he’d run through the conversation in his head several times already and still disliked every version of it. "You don't have to tell me why, but Starfire said you're awake most nights."
Raven’s expression tightened. “Starfire talks too much.”
“She cares too much,” Robin corrected, then hesitated. “And I would’ve noticed it myself, anyway.”
“You hadn’t,” she mumbled.
Robin leaned his elbows on his knees. “Raven - “
“Anyway, it’s not your responsibility to monitor my sleep habits.”
“Sure,” he agreed, “but it is my responsibility to make sure the people on this team are okay.” Robin exhaled, quieter now. “And you’re not okay.”
“I’m not on your team,” she reminded him, and immediately felt guilty. These people, after all, had given her a home and asked nothing of her in return.
“It’s just an adjustment,” she clarified. “New environment.”
“I’m sure that’s part of it,” Robin said, and there was no argument in his tone. “I probably should’ve noticed sooner,” he added, quieter. “Sorry.”
Raven leaned back on her hands. “It’s not a reportable offense.”
“I know. It’s just - you’ve been here a while now. And if something’s wrong, I don’t want you just dealing with it.”
Her gaze narrowed slightly. “I’m not ‘dealing with it,’” she said. “It’s fine.”
“Starfire said your room is too quiet.”
Raven’s eyes flicked briefly toward him. “Of course she did.”
“Is that what it is?” he asked. “The silence?”
She turned her gaze back to the city. Refusal was simple. Refusal was safe. If people knew less, they had less to misunderstand. Less to use against her. Less to fear.
Raven glanced back at him. “It’s a room. It doesn’t need to be a big deal.”
“It kind of does if it’s keeping you from sleeping.” Robin shifted again, visibly less sure of himself now that he was past the prepared part of the conversation. “So,” he said, “Can I fix it?”
Raven blinked once. “I’m not sure I understand the question.”
He gestured vaguely toward the Tower. "More light. Less light. Some background noise. Different security settings. Whatever you need."
"You'd change the Tower because I can't sleep?"
"I'd change a room because someone living here can't sleep."
“It’s not even my room.”
“It could be. Even if it wasn’t, you’re still my guest, and I want you to be comfortable here.”
“I don’t need special treatment - ”
“It’s not special treatment,” Robin replied. “I’d like you to be able to sleep here comfortably, especially since you’ve been helping so much lately. You must be exhausted, and now that I know it’s affecting you, I’m not just going to ignore it.”
Raven studied him for a long moment. The wind moved around them, constant and indifferent. “What if there isn’t a clean solution?”
“Then we don’t look for a clean one,” he said. “We look for one that works. You’re not… supposed to just be uncomfortable here.”
That part sounded like it came out despite him, not as a line he’d planned.
Raven looked up again. There was something slightly unfamiliar about the offer, not because it was grand, but because it was open-ended. "You'd do that?"
Robin looked genuinely confused. "Why wouldn't I?"
Raven studied him more closely now. There was no strategy in his expression, no angle. Just discomfort; mild guilt, even.
“It’s the silence,” she confirmed, feeling her ears warm.
Robin nodded once, glad to have a mission objective he could actually work with. “Okay. I’ll have Cyborg set something up. Or… whatever you want. Just - tell me.”
Raven gave a small nod.
“And if something else is off,” he said, quieter, “you don’t have to wait for Starfire to notice it. I don’t really like that I had to hear it from her.”
Raven blinked once. “I’m sorry?”
“No - ” he corrected himself quickly, shaking his head. “That came out wrong. I don’t mean it like you did something wrong. I mean I don’t like that I wasn’t the one you came to.”
He exhaled, frustrated with himself now. “I know I’m not exactly… the easiest person to talk to,” he admitted, “but I’m trying to be. For the team. For you.”
Raven watched him carefully, as if trying to determine whether this was a reprimand disguised as concern. It wasn’t, but it was still unfamiliar.
“If something’s wrong, anything, you should feel like you can come to me directly,” he continued. “I might not always have the right answer, but because I want to know.”
Raven’s gaze dropped briefly to the floor.
“You shouldn’t have to filter things through everyone else first,” he said, a faint crease forming between his brows. “I don’t want you feeling like I’m separate from that. Like I’m only the person who assigns missions or handles emergencies. I’m part of the team, too.”
Raven studied him for a long moment. “I didn’t avoid you,” she said finally. “I just didn’t think it was important.”
Robin’s expression softened a fraction. “That’s kind of my point,” he said gently. “If you’re struggling with something, it is important. I don’t want you thinking you have to earn space on the team by being fine all the time.”
“I’m not on your team.”
Robin rubbed the back of his neck again, clearly aware he was circling something uncomfortable. “I’m not upset,” he clarified quickly. “I just… want to be included in it. If it involves you. So is there anything else that’s bothering you?”
Robin waited. There was more, and he knew it. She knew he knew it, but didn’t know what, and it was killing him.
Raven's fingers tightened around the sleeves covering her hands. "No." She paused. "...Maybe."
She could feel it constantly; a pressure beneath her skin. A faint, persistent resistance against the energy that lived inside her. The Tower was warded; she had known that from the moment she stepped inside.
She didn't look at him. “Are there…” she stopped, hesitating. “Are there magic dampeners in the walls?”
Robin blinked. "...What?"
"So magic couldn't be used against the building," her voice remained carefully flat. "I can feel... something."
Robin's stomach sank, and he looked toward the floor beneath them. The reinforced steel. The layered security systems. The shielding. The defensive network Cyborg had proudly explained during construction. Countermeasures against telepaths, against radiation, against alien energy signatures.
Against...
Magic.
Future proofing.
Because they'd planned for enemies, not teammates.
Raven could practically see the moment his mind began running through the Tower's schematics. "Yes," he said slowly. "There are." His expression had changed completely; gone was the easy confidence, and in its place was unmistakable guilt.
She nodded once. "I thought so. They're... loud."
"Loud?"
"I don't know how to explain it." She searched for words. "It's like trying to sleep next to..." she hesitated, "a machine that's constantly humming."
Robin's face fell. “They’re hurting you?"
"It doesn’t hurt," she insisted quickly. “It's subtle. At first I thought I was imagining it. But the longer I'm here, the worse it becomes." She pressed a hand against her chest. "My powers don't stop. They push back. Constantly. Like trying to breathe against a heavy weight."
Robin closed his eyes for a second, going completely still. How had none of them considered this?
Because there hadn't been a magic user on the Titans when the tower was designed. Because every safeguard had been built around keeping threats out. Because they'd never imagined one of the people they wanted to protect would be affected.
Robin exhaled slowly. "I am so, so sorry."
"You don't have to apologize."
"Let me," he laughed once, humorless. "This one's on us."
She studied him. He genuinely looked sick over the realization.
Robin stood abruptly. "I'm turning them off."
"You can't just - "
"Watch me."
"Robin."
“Are they really everywhere? There’s no place without them?”
Raven glanced toward the open sky. “Welcome to the roof.”
He looked around them, and then again at her. "I am so sorry Raven. I'll get Cyborg to reconfigure the system tonight. We'll isolate the magical dampeners from your room first. Then we'll figure out whether we even need them running at full strength."
He pushed off the ledge slightly. “Come on,” he said gently. “It’s cold up here. Come inside while Cyborg and I figure this out.”
He didn’t reach for her, didn’t insist. Just stood there, waiting. After a moment, Raven slowly stood. Robin stepped back to give her space immediately, turning toward the door and holding it open for her.
-
The common room doors slid open with a soft hiss. Raven stepped inside, a small duffel bag slung over one shoulder. She looked different than she had ten days ago. Not completely recovered, not yet, but the borrowed clothes fit properly now, and the hollowness that had once sharpened every feature of her face had begun to soften. The shadows beneath her eyes were lighter. She stood straighter.
The room was empty except for Robin, who was sitting at the center console. He glanced up as she entered. "So," he said, turning around in his chair. "You’re really leaving."
Raven adjusted her grip on the bag. “I’ve been here long enough.” Her eyes drifted toward the window. “I don’t want to impose.”
Robin looked genuinely confused. "You've met Beast Boy, right?"
Despite herself, Raven smiled.
Robin pushed himself out of his chair and crossed the room. He slowed as he approached her, suddenly seeming unsure of what to do with his hands. “I just thought maybe you’d stay longer.”
Raven looked away. “I shouldn’t.”
He remembered carrying her into the Tower, remembered the frightening stillness of her in his arms. The way he had spent hours sitting beside her bed, listening for every breath because some irrational part of him had been convinced that if he stopped paying attention, something would happen. Something terrible.
The thought still made his chest tighten. "You know," he said, "you’ve grown on everyone pretty fast. And I…” he hesitated, then met her eyes. “We don’t want you to go.”
"I don't like depending on people."
"I - yeah.” Robin rubbed the back of his neck. “I get it.”
Raven stared out the massive window overlooking Jump City. "I appreciate what you did," she finally said.
“Oh,” Robin blinked. "You're welcome."
Another silence. Then Robin reached into one of his utility belt compartments. "Actually, before you go..." he held out a small device.
Raven looked down at it. “Your communicator?”
“Not mine. Yours.”
Raven frowned.
“Cyborg put it together for you. We use it to keep in touch in the field, but it’s basically just a phone on a private network.”
“Why are you giving it to me?”
"Because I don’t want you disappearing into the shadows forever."
She gave him a skeptical look.
Robin sighed. "Look, I'm not saying you have to join the Titans - "
"I wasn't worried you were."
"But," he continued, ignoring the comment, "you're allowed to come and go as you please. The Tower door is open to you whenever you need it. Your room will stay yours."
She stared at him. "That’s it?”
“That’s it.” Robin stepped forward and pressed the communicator into her palm. "If you're hungry, if you’re in trouble, if you need a place to stay, call me."
“You’ve already done too much - “
"Just keep it," he closed her fingers around the device. "Use it. Don't use it. It's yours."
She slipped it into her back pocket.
Robin smiled. "There. Now if you vanish mysteriously, at least I have a way to bother you."
Raven smiled back.
“Now,” Robin said. “I believe I owe you a ride back to North Glenn.”
Raven shifted her bag slightly, like she was preparing to turn, and Robin’s brain stopped working. There was no need for the sudden heaviness in his chest; she had never promised to stay. He was supposed to drive her back to whatever life she had before the Titans. Maybe he would see her again. Maybe he wouldn’t.
“Although - ” Robin said suddenly.
Raven looked back.
“The timing’s kinda bad.”
Raven raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”
“Yeah,” Robin said, glancing around the empty common room. “Cyborg’s been telling me about this new recipe he’s trying tonight for lo mein. And Beast Boy brought home a new video game. And Starfire’s not back from the mall yet, and I know she’d want to say goodbye.”
Raven’s mouth twitched. “Sounds busy.”
“It will be. There will probably be some kind of argument over a movie. Beast Boy will complain that the game he bought is rigged when he loses. Cyborg will insist that no one is eating enough.”
“So you could stick around for that,” he pressed on. “Balance the chaos, help keep everyone under control.”
Raven studied him for a long moment. “You said I could leave whenever I wanted.”
“And that’s still true. You can.” He reached for the strap of her duffel. “Just…” his fingers closed gently around it. “Don’t leave tonight.”
The arrogance of this hopelessly optimistic boy would be the end of her.
Slowly, she let the bag slide from her shoulder, and Robin took it before it could fall.
-
Dinner became a board game, and the board game somehow became a movie, ending well after midnight.
The others had turned in for the night, leaving Raven standing at the glass wall overlooking Jump City. Lights were starting to come on across the skyline. The Tower stood above it all, quiet, insulated from the rest of the world. Safe, like temporary things usually were.
Robin walked past carrying empty popcorn bowls. "So."
She met his eyes in the reflection. "So?"
"We heading out first thing tomorrow?"
"I suppose."
"Cool," he started walking away, then paused. “Unless you decide to stay another day.”
She tried to hide the smile pulling at her lips, but the grin on Robin’s face revealed she had been caught.
He shrugged, feigning casualness. "Nobody's gonna complain."
Raven watched him disappear around the corner. She looked down at the communicator still resting in her hand. The little blue light blinked once. A direct line back. Not because anyone expected her to need rescuing, but because they wanted to hear from her.
She slipped it into her pocket. Tomorrow, she decided. She could leave tomorrow. The thought felt perfectly reasonable.