236: What does respect mean to me?
Seven letters, two syllables. So simple, yet it means so much to so many.
Me? I think it’s something you have to earn. And even then, it’s not easy. Respect doesn’t just come to you. It takes a lot of time, and a lot of effort, in a lot of cases. Even if you try your damnedest, you still might not get any respect. And even people who haven’t done anything lately worth respecting still get respect because of who they are, who they know, or what they’ve done before.
I tried. I tried so damn hard to win the Titans’ respect, to be someone they could call a Titan and mean it. There were two Titans whose respect meant more to me than almost anything else, Robin and Wonder Girl.
When I tried to seduce Robin, I wasn’t doing it just because I thought he was hot. I did it because I didn’t want to be alone and I felt I could trust him to . . . be there.
When I was antagonizing Wonder Girl, it wasn’t quite for the hell of it. I did it because she wasn’t worth respecting, in my eyes; people who couldn’t get over themselves and took out their bad feelings on people who didn’t do jack to them didn’t deserve respect, even if they were protégés of Wonder Woman. Then . . . something happened.
I came to respect her. I admired her as a warrior, how fierce and skilled she was. And then . . . I overheard her talking about me to Robin, saying that I was too unstable to be a good Titan. And Robin agreed with her.
I might have respected them, but they didn’t respect me.
Now I’m back where I started a year ago. Alone.
OOC: This prompt is based on the ending of Teen Titans #60.