Archive of Our Own ^beta

The weather in the morning is bright and warm, with a good chance of bitter juxtaposition.

The sun rises on the bay and twinkles through the top floors of the Tower. Neither a design flaw nor an intentional feature, the windows on either side of the main hallway have always reflected the light in a curious way: a prism, letting just a bit of color shine in.

Beast Boy has tofu scrambled in a pan and three team members eagerly awaiting breakfast at the kitchen table. Starfire quickly notices the fourth’s absence.

“I shall go wake Robin,” she says, and adds, “He should join us for this wonderful morning feast!”

As she floats down the hall, she wonders if wake was perhaps the wrong word. Robin was always known for being an early riser, and rarely slept past nine o’clock in the morning. More often than not, he would be training, working a lead, always doing something to get ahead.

Starfire remarked on the behavior only once, in the very beginning.

“People of Earth are very odd, how you simply do not take breaks!”

Cyborg had laughed, shaking his head as he replied, “That’s an East Coast thing, Star. We’re not all like that, but you might want to get used to it.”

She has by now, but that does not make it any less strange.

She knocks on the familiar door and calls out, for a moment hearing nothing but silence in return.

“Robin?”

The quietest bit of rustling.

“I am inviting myself to enter,” she says, giving fair warning before the door slides open with a definitive woosh.

The rummaging is in the closet, where Robin is reaching for a duffel bag.

The first thing she notices when he stands up straight is his uniform. Or rather, the lack of it: for the very first time since they met, Robin is wearing jeans, a sweater, and a normal pair of sneakers. No Kevlar leggings, no steel-toed boots, no cape. The mask is replaced by a pair of sunglasses that nearly fly off his face as he jumps when he sees her.

“I didn’t hear you come in,” he admits. His voice is flat, uneven, and she is immediately on-edge.

“Robin, I came to invite you to the breakfast feast in the kitchen,” she starts, but her eyes fall to the bag in Robin’s hands. The air feels different in the room, but she can’t quite place how.

Earth people remain difficult to read some days—even her closest friends, though she tries her best.

“Is everything alright?”

Robin is silent for a long moment, shifting his weight back and forth.

“I need to leave for a few days,” he says darkly, finally, and puts his bag on the bed. It is already full, zipped, and prepared for departure, as if pre-packed and ready at the draw.

She sizes him up and sees faint lines on his cheeks, where tear tracks have since dried. Her heart seems to sink in her chest.

“Robin, if something has made you sad, I wish to help. And I am sure that our friends would—”

“It’s okay, Star,” he says, even if he doesn’t quite mean it. “It’s nothing that… nothing that happened here. Nothing you did.”

A long moment passes between them.

“I have to go home for a few days,” he clarifies, though it clarifies less than what Starfire may have hoped. “I’ll be back. I promise.”

She gets the sense that the conversation is very nearly closed.

He slings his bag over his shoulder. “Tell the others bye for me?”

Robin poses it as a question, but is gone before she can answer.

The only thing Raven can feel when she steps into Robin’s bedroom is grief, bouncing intensely off of every wall. The bed is perfectly made and the room is clean, per usual. The desk has its normal spread of newspaper headlines and article cut-outs stacked neatly by the edge.

“We shouldn’t be in here,” she offers, her best attempt at salvaging her teammate’s privacy. Robin once mentioned in passing that he never kept anything particularly important out in the open in his room. No wallet with his driver’s license in the back, no photos of his family, no relics from home.

“That seems boring,” she had said. And sad, though she never spoke that part aloud. He only ever shrugged.

“Just because it’s not out in the open doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.” A pause. “It’s not that I don’t trust you. It’s just…”

“Don’t worry. Everyone has things they’re not ready to share yet,” she explained, her voice even and calm. This wasn’t, however, the pure altruism it might have looked like.

More of an I won’t ask if you won’t. She was never much of a prier, anyway.

Her other three teammates, on the other hand, don’t shy away from a quick peak.

They find it by accident, when Beast Boy brushes a recent newspaper onto the floor. It had been turned to a middle page and carefully folded, and Cyborg takes care to put it in back its exact spot—just not before reading the headline.

“American killed in Bosnian warehouse explosion,” he reads aloud, and the air grows cold.

Beast Boy’s breath hitches for just a moment. “You don’t think—”

“No,” Cyborg answers. “Not Batman. It says it was a kid, so they won’t release the name.”

The weather in this room is heavy and tense, with a good chance of seeing something they weren’t exactly meant to see.

“Do you think it’s someone else he knew?”

“I think,” Cyborg starts with a sigh, “that Raven’s right. We shouldn’t be here. Come on. He’ll be back in a few days.”

Without another word, they file out, and there is some finality to the way the door wooshes shut behind them.

There’s something about the way Bruce trained him that makes it so he simply can’t leave a dangling thread alone. Whether that’s a blessing or a curse remains to be seen.

If the Titans ever ask why he’s so invested, he has that training to fall back on. I’m a detective, he’d say. I was taught to consider every lead.

The truth is, he might have left it alone if a few words would stop echoing in the back of his head.

I thought you didn’t like to play the hero.

Doesn’t mean I don’t know how.

The way he spoke and the way they moved together felt familiar, and in spite of everything that led them to that moment, Robin finds himself smiling.

‘Hope,’ he thinks, ‘is the thing with feathers.’ He always thought it had wings.

The weather on the edge of the rooftop is cool and rainy, with a good chance of a secret or two unraveling completely.

“I’ll bet you feel clever, kid,” a voice chimes behind him. “Spreading rumors underground to draw me out. Anyone ever tell you it’s wrong to lie?”

“You know, that’s seventh time you’ve called me ‘kid,’ X,” Robin answers, dodging the question. “Almost like you’re trying too hard to appear older. You’re bigger than I am, sure. I’m not a tall guy. But older?”

Red X is silent as the deduction continues.

“That mask pitches down and adds reverberation. My voice was always lower that yours when I used it—and it can’t hide the cracks. Best guess? I’ve got two years on you, give or take.”

“Trained by the world’s greatest detective, and all he’s got is a guess on my age.” The mask covers his face, but Robin can hear the smirk coloring his tone.

“I never said I was finished. The Tower’s security system is also supposed to be foolproof. Why, you might ask? Because we didn’t build it from scratch. We had a good foundation. What should have been an impenetrable foundation.”

“What can I say? I aim to impress.”

“Except, you don’t. Do you?” Robin asks, and for a moment, the two fall silent. “You want the truth?”

He smiles.

“The back passenger tire on the T-Car is missing,” he says. Red X tilts his head and breathes.

“And you think I stole it,” he supplies. “Well, I didn’t.”

“I know.”

Robin extends a hand and drops five lug nuts onto the roof, where they bounce and clatter. He takes a few steps back to where the building’s HVAC unit sits, pulls a tire from behind it, and sends it rolling gently until it tips, lands squarely at Red X’s feet.

“I’m out looking for it.”

“You stole your own teammate’s tire?” X notes. “That’s not very good guy of you, is it?”

“I wanted to see how it looked on you.”

Just a kid with a stolen tire, Red X stands frozen in the rain without a word.

“It’s a good tire, X. Hardly any wear, you’d probably get a lot for it. We’ve got a good spare until we can track it down. It might change hands a few times by then, but I’m not worried. We’ll find it.”

The two stand and stare—at the tire, at each other, at nothing in particular.

Finally, Robin turns to go. “Take care of yourself. Alright?”

All Red X can bring himself to do is nod as Robin grapples from the roof with a smile, and thinks – the thing with wings, indeed.