Finally finished!
Subject/Claim: Speedy/Raven
Themes in Batch: Picture, Snow, Home (AC), and Forever
Themes Completed: 30/30
Movie
She blinked, not entirely certain she’d heard him correctly. “A what?”
The archer shifted on his feet nervously, and Raven realized it was the only time she’d seen him as anything other than completely self-assured.
“A movie,” he answered, and the empath felt a block of ice settle in her stomach. Or was it…his?
And suddenly, the pieces fell into place. The faint tint of his cheeks, anxiety, uncharacteristic lack of confidence…
“Are you asking me out?”
“Are you accepting?”
Silence stood thick between them, and then, “I don’t do romantic comedies.”
Speedy grinned. He’d take that as a yes.
*****
Peaches
Raven wasn’t pretty in the conventional sense of the word. Her skin wasn’t peaches and cream, her hair didn’t fall in waves of silk, and her smile wouldn’t rival the light of the sun.
Oddly enough, it was what he liked best about her.
Because peaches never tasted as good as the sweetness of her skin beneath his lips. Silk didn’t feel half as soothing as the brush of her hair between his fingertips. And no amount of sunlight could warm his soul like the slightest upward turn of her mouth.
No, she wasn’t pretty.
Such terms simply didn’t apply.
*****
Animal
Speedy was careful with his scars. Hid them well, beneath quick smiles and cheap words and boots gone heavy with bruises.
But she found them, buried in the dark places, under skin stretched thin, and he was shamed at the look in her eyes when her fingertips ghosted tracks she understood too well.
Evil took on many forms, after all.
“You think you’re the only one with secrets, Raven,” he hissed, angry and laid bare as the animal he’d become.
She never said a word, only held him; breath and touch soft enough to make him feel almost human again.
*****
Music
“She likes mint in her tea at night, she prefers orchids to roses…”
“Um…come in?” Speedy arched a brow as Robin crossed the threshold of the East tower. He hadn’t stopped talking.
“…like Tori Amos, but her favorite band is actually Pink Floyd-“
“Hold it. You drove 2000 miles just to tell me what kind of music Raven likes?”
“No,” and suddenly, his voice was dark, expression unreadable. “I came to tell you that she’s not some notch on your bedpost. She’s different. Fragile. Special.”
“And if you ever forget that…” Robin didn’t have to finish.
Speedy already knew.
*****
Dead
Robin didn’t have the words, but she hadn’t needed them, anyway. She could see the stifled tremor of his hands, the sickly pallid of his skin. And as she met his eyes, any hope evaporated.
“Dead?” It wasn’t really a question.
He took her hand, placing the broken communicator and remnants of his mask in her palm.
“Rae, I’m-“
“Don’t,” she said, voice unwavering, eyes turned stone. “There’s nothing to be sorry for.”
His grip tightened. “It’s okay to hurt, Raven.”
“People come. People go. In the end, we’re all ash.”
When she walked away, he almost believed her.
*****
Alive
Irony left a bitter taste in her mouth. It was cruel the way it coiled around her fingers in the grass stains on her hands, drifted through the sweet apple blossoms and sunlight, warm on her back. Echoed in the laughter of children passing by her forest of stone.
And it hurt. Every sight, smell, and sound a brutal mockery. It wasn’t right that everything around her should seem so alive when he was-
“Oh Roy, how can you leave me here like this?” The words were whispered, soft, speaking not the pain of death…
But the pain of life.
*****
Rose
Robin dared not move. Feared if he spoke, she’d dissipate like the apparition she’d become over the last few weeks. Of course, he knew she was aware of him.
Raven was always aware, painfully so.
Tentatively he stepped toward her, taking in the grave soil on her knees, and the single red rose dangling from her fingertips.
“Grossly inadequate, isn’t it?” She spoke, twirling the rose, mindless of its thorns. “Yet it’s all we have.”
“What will you do now?” He wondered if she could feel her tears as keenly as he could.
“I will live, Robin. On his behalf.”
*****
Stars
The room went completely still as she entered, her petite frame swathed in a whisper of black silk and lace, lavender tresses pinned up in soft waves, and sapphires sparkling like stars along the long, smooth column of her neck.
Bumblebee approached cautiously, but her expression spoke of gratitude. “We weren’t sure if you’d come.”
Raven smiled. It was tiny, only a slight turn of her pretty lips, but for the first time in a year, it met her eyes. “Roy taught me the value of what it is to feel. It’s time I remembered that.”
They couldn’t agree more.
*****
Time
“This better be good.” She hadn’t bothered to lift her face from the pillows.
“Do I ever call without good reason?”
Raven sat up and pried one eye open, an expression of obvious skepticism in place.
“Speedy, do you have any idea what time it is?”
“Your time? Maybe three. Four.”
She glowered; he didn’t even have the grace to look remorseful. “If this is some ploy to see what I’m wearing…”
He shouted with laughter. “No, but I’ll have to remember that.”
“Roy-“
“Maybe I just wanted to hear your voice.”
She softened then. It was reason enough.
*****
Blue
The breath iced over in her chest, and for the first time in her life, Raven felt truly exposed. Nothing stood between them now. No barriers. No masks left to protect them.
“Don’t Raven. Don’t turn away from me this time.”
“You can’t give me this,” she whispered, shutting her eyes tightly when she felt the heat of his hands as he spun her around.
“I already have.”
“…I love him, Robin.”
A touch, soft and sure on the swell of her cheek. “I know.”
And she sensed his regret, heavy as the weight of his gaze, so very blue.
*****
Love
“You shouldn’t, you know.”
The archer paused to look at her there, with her cheek pressed against the glass as she watched rain stain the world a darker shade of gray and sheets that curled with soft light along the smooth plane of her back, and, not for the first time, thought her beautiful.
”Shouldn’t what?”
“…Love me,” she whispered.
“I shouldn’t do a lot of things, Raven,” he spoke, shirt forgotten on the floor as he folded around her, fingertips brushing the gentle curve of her face and forehead at rest against hers, “but that isn’t one of them.”
*****
Riddle
“Hasn’t anyone told you it’s rude to read over someone’s shoulder?” Raven intoned, pencil poised at her chin.
“E.”
“Excuse me?” She arched a delicate brow and turned to meet his cheeky grin.
“The answer to your riddle,” he motioned toward the puzzle book settled in her lap. “Eve had two, Adam had none, and everyone has three...it’s the letter e.”
“…You’re right,” she breathed. “Since when are you so good at riddles?”
“Hey! I figured you out, didn’t I?”
Her gaze sharpened. “…You read the answers, didn’t you?”
Speedy grinned sheepishly; so, maybe it was the other way around.
*****
Dark
Raven wasn’t entirely sure what prompted the question, and had it not been for the uncommon seriousness written in the turn of his mouth and the dire need she felt from him in the pull of her chest, she’d not have answered.
“…Lonely,” she breathed, surprising herself with the truth of it. “Dark. Like absolute night.”
His touch came in feather soft whispers along the silvery tracks of her skin, and she shuddered with the promise behind it. “Never again.”
“You can’t stop what death brings,” she murmured.
“No,” he agreed. “But I can follow you there, into the dark.”
*****
Luck
Speedy supposed it was a very good thing he didn’t believe in luck, otherwise he’d have been cursing his from the moment he’d drawn her name from that hat.
He could’ve taken the easy way out and gotten her what anyone else would have. And he nearly did. But just as his fingers grazed the spine of a particularly thick tome he realized…
He didn’t want to be like everyone else. At least not to Raven.
So, maybe he was a fool. Maybe she wouldn’t like what he’d chosen.
Or maybe, there was something to this luck thing, after all.
*****
Book
Raven’s hand stilled over ribbons and sparkling paper strewn carelessly and blinked in confusion.
It wasn’t a book.
It was always a book. Every year, every secret Santa drawing-it was as much a tradition as the Titan Christmas gathering itself.
And Raven didn’t mind. That they noticed her enjoyment of literature was enough. But this…
Carefully, she opened the envelope and removed the tickets as though they were fragile, glass figurines. “Les Miserables,” she breathed, oblivious to the fact they were all, but one, staring at her in stupefied curiosity.
“Rae?” Cyborg ventured. “You’re smiling.”
And, indeed, she was.
*****
Clouds
“I wanted to thank you.”
He let the arrow fly, striking the target dead center though he hadn’t taken his eyes from her since she stepped foot onto the training grounds.
“You knew it was me,” he stated, not surprised she’d figured it out.
She nodded, and though her hood was up, he could see the gentle flush of her cheeks like ruddy embers of dying afternoon light upon the dark of evening clouds.
“…Would…you like to go with me?”
He paused, facing her directly. “Do you want me to?”
“…I think I’d like that.”
Speedy grinned. “So would I.”
*****
Cold
It was easy to forget the world ever happened to people like Speedy. A hopeless flirt and something of an egomaniac, he was quick to smile and often the source of amusement for those around him.
Until those moments when he thought no one was around, where there was no laughter, and his smile was lost somewhere in the rubble of the day, buried in the firestorm of dusk.
Fire always brought the quiet.
And it was then she remembered, as he was silent and small and so very cold, that the world was merciless, and he knew it well.
*****
Sky
“Each ray of sunshine is seven minutes old,” he’d told her once when he was wrapped around her in the sand, and their eyes stretched out over the bay, watching evening fires smolder and turn the day to ash.
She turned slightly, into the crook of his neck, and could smell summer on his skin. “So, when I look to the sky, I see the past?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“Then the past is happening all around us,” she murmured.
“It is.”
“And the future?”
His touch whispered along the contours of her face as he met her lips and smiled. “Is this.”
*****
Fight
She could feel the fire in his skin wrapped so tightly around her wrists, on his lips ardent and fierce upon hers, in his unfettered gaze as he pulled away from her, pleading, and so very intense that she could not face him as he held her, there, against him.
“Please…don’t-“ unable to finish as his fingers moved to brush the hot tears slipping from beneath her lashes.
“Not this time, Raven,” he whispered insistently. “I won’t let go. I’m going to fight for you.”
Then he was gone, and the bruise on her heart was all that remained.
*****
Sleep
Speedy froze when he found her, stretched out in the dark along the couch with a book at rest on her stomach, and sleep settled on her skin like frost.
But it wasn’t the moon creeping through the glass in slips and tangles of warm blue light that flittered across the delicate lines of her face, which made him itch to touch her. And innocent vulnerability had nothing to do with why he watched over her until the night bled into hues of rose and gold and she stirred.
He slipped away, wondering if she always smiled in her sleep.
*****
Emotion
The moment they were alone he fell into her, lips and hands needy upon her skin, desperate to find the pulse and flush of life there, and Raven felt the emotion crush her like a tidal wave as he sank to his knees before her, trembling.
Relief.
And fear.
“Jesus, Raven,” he breathed, “I thought I lost you.”
She crumbled; taking his face in her palms, though she wasn’t certain which of them was supporting the other anymore. “Ssh, Roy,” she soothed. “It’s okay. I’m fine. It could’ve been worse.”
He held her tighter, knowing that, indeed, it could have.
*****
Beach
Arsenal often wondered just what she saw when she stared out across the sea, sometimes for hours, until the tide carried the beach away on its back, and the moon hung heavy in the sky.
Some nights, she didn’t come in at all, and he would find her in the sand, curled in on herself and lips blue from the cold. He would pull her to his chest then, and carry her inside while she rattled on about days long passed or ones that never were.
When he was lucky, she remembered his name as he kissed her good night.
*****
Ring
“Don’t you want to know what happened?” Speedy growled, spitting the blood from his mouth and ignoring the sting of split lips.
She was quiet for a while, tracing her fingers in feather strokes over the broken edges of his cheek, her energy mending the fragments below his skin. The ones that went far deeper than pieces of bone and the ugly purple ring around his eye.
And when she finally met his gaze, he realized that he didn’t need to say a word. It was a battle she’d been fighting all along, with bruises much heavier than his own.
*****
Hate
“It’s okay if you hate me,” his voice was serious yet soft, devoid of the tension and spite that poisoned the air between them for so many months now, and Robin stiffened upon hearing it, unable to set aside his empty mug or look away from the countertop littered with dishes.
“I’ll regret it, but I can live with it. But Raven…”
Robin looked up then, turning slowly, as though really listening. Maybe for the first time.
“…She cares about you.”
He wondered just what it had cost Speedy to admit the fact.
He wondered the same thing about himself.
*****
Holiday
It was in the things she didn’t say. Raven was quiet in her remorse. Doubly so in her affections. Yet it was there, in the soft curve of her mouth, in the way her eyes lit up like a holiday whenever he called.
And Robin saw. Through the silence and store-bought discretions she wore for him, he saw, and he knew.
He’d been wrong.
And his heart was a cherry bomb that burned and swelled in his chest, right before it blew itself apart. Because that light was never meant for him…
And who was he to put it out.
*****
Angel
She blinked rapidly, trying to rid the grit of sleep from her eyes to focus on him before she lost to the dark again, and a tiny smile crept onto her lips. He was there, sitting on the windowsill with the sun streaming in, burning the air around him into rivers of gold and turning him into an angel of fire.
“You came,” she rasped, and Speedy turned to face her, gaze soft and touch as warm as she’d dreamed when he reached out to brush the tips of his fingers lightly through her hair.
“For you,” he whispered, “always.”
*****
Picture
He found her on the roof, eyes glittering and lost between the moonlight and crumpled newspaper at her feet. She was beautiful. Tragic. Raw in the face of true emotion.
“What are you doing here, Roy?” she whispered.
“Cyborg called,” he replied quietly.
“Did he tell you I’m a murderer?”
“It was an accident, Raven.”
Her gaze wandered to the picture below the headlines, one dark and baleful eye staring back from the confines of the page.
“Was it?”
He took her in his arms, letting icy tears seep into his skin. It was the only answer he could offer.
*****
Snow
He smiled affectionately, and it was warm and serene despite the bitter chill she felt settle deep into his chest.
“You’re scared,” he said softly. Knowingly.
“No, Roy-“ but the half-hearted denial froze on her lips under the weight of his gaze.
“You think you don’t deserve this…us,” he continued, fingers ghosting the shadows of her face, burning her through like the snow.
“You’re scared. And it’s okay, Raven. Really. Because I’m not giving up on you. I’ll hold on for the both of us.”
“Why?” she breathed.
He sighed and tilted her chin. “We’re worth hanging on to.”
*****
Home
There was something infinitely lonely about the moment before dawn. The flutter of birds ceased, shadows deepened upon the black, and the space between heartbeats stretched on into nothing.
It was in this worldly synchronous breath that Raven wandered, lost; forgot what it was to be anything other than the hollow around her.
Until the sun stretched its golden fingers across the sky, and he stirred, bringing life flittering back in through the gray. And when he unconsciously drew her closer and breathed into her hair, the night drifted away with its ghosts.
And she smiled, remembering.
She was home.
*****
Forever
Raven sighed and eased onto the hood of the T-Car, looking out over the city below, into the deepening twilight. “So, you wanna tell me why we’ve stolen Cyborg’s car and driven into nowhere?”
The sky exploded into brilliant showers of color and spark as though in response, and he smiled at the pleasant turn of her mouth.
“Just thought we could forget the world for awhile.”
She nestled into his side, content to watch the fireworks paint the night and smiled, knowing it was all either of them could offer.
It wasn’t forever, but for now, it was enough.
Themes in Batch: Picture, Snow, Home (AC), and Forever
Themes Completed: 30/30
Movie
She blinked, not entirely certain she’d heard him correctly. “A what?”
The archer shifted on his feet nervously, and Raven realized it was the only time she’d seen him as anything other than completely self-assured.
“A movie,” he answered, and the empath felt a block of ice settle in her stomach. Or was it…his?
And suddenly, the pieces fell into place. The faint tint of his cheeks, anxiety, uncharacteristic lack of confidence…
“Are you asking me out?”
“Are you accepting?”
Silence stood thick between them, and then, “I don’t do romantic comedies.”
Speedy grinned. He’d take that as a yes.
*****
Peaches
Raven wasn’t pretty in the conventional sense of the word. Her skin wasn’t peaches and cream, her hair didn’t fall in waves of silk, and her smile wouldn’t rival the light of the sun.
Oddly enough, it was what he liked best about her.
Because peaches never tasted as good as the sweetness of her skin beneath his lips. Silk didn’t feel half as soothing as the brush of her hair between his fingertips. And no amount of sunlight could warm his soul like the slightest upward turn of her mouth.
No, she wasn’t pretty.
Such terms simply didn’t apply.
*****
Animal
Speedy was careful with his scars. Hid them well, beneath quick smiles and cheap words and boots gone heavy with bruises.
But she found them, buried in the dark places, under skin stretched thin, and he was shamed at the look in her eyes when her fingertips ghosted tracks she understood too well.
Evil took on many forms, after all.
“You think you’re the only one with secrets, Raven,” he hissed, angry and laid bare as the animal he’d become.
She never said a word, only held him; breath and touch soft enough to make him feel almost human again.
*****
Music
“She likes mint in her tea at night, she prefers orchids to roses…”
“Um…come in?” Speedy arched a brow as Robin crossed the threshold of the East tower. He hadn’t stopped talking.
“…like Tori Amos, but her favorite band is actually Pink Floyd-“
“Hold it. You drove 2000 miles just to tell me what kind of music Raven likes?”
“No,” and suddenly, his voice was dark, expression unreadable. “I came to tell you that she’s not some notch on your bedpost. She’s different. Fragile. Special.”
“And if you ever forget that…” Robin didn’t have to finish.
Speedy already knew.
*****
Dead
Robin didn’t have the words, but she hadn’t needed them, anyway. She could see the stifled tremor of his hands, the sickly pallid of his skin. And as she met his eyes, any hope evaporated.
“Dead?” It wasn’t really a question.
He took her hand, placing the broken communicator and remnants of his mask in her palm.
“Rae, I’m-“
“Don’t,” she said, voice unwavering, eyes turned stone. “There’s nothing to be sorry for.”
His grip tightened. “It’s okay to hurt, Raven.”
“People come. People go. In the end, we’re all ash.”
When she walked away, he almost believed her.
*****
Alive
Irony left a bitter taste in her mouth. It was cruel the way it coiled around her fingers in the grass stains on her hands, drifted through the sweet apple blossoms and sunlight, warm on her back. Echoed in the laughter of children passing by her forest of stone.
And it hurt. Every sight, smell, and sound a brutal mockery. It wasn’t right that everything around her should seem so alive when he was-
“Oh Roy, how can you leave me here like this?” The words were whispered, soft, speaking not the pain of death…
But the pain of life.
*****
Rose
Robin dared not move. Feared if he spoke, she’d dissipate like the apparition she’d become over the last few weeks. Of course, he knew she was aware of him.
Raven was always aware, painfully so.
Tentatively he stepped toward her, taking in the grave soil on her knees, and the single red rose dangling from her fingertips.
“Grossly inadequate, isn’t it?” She spoke, twirling the rose, mindless of its thorns. “Yet it’s all we have.”
“What will you do now?” He wondered if she could feel her tears as keenly as he could.
“I will live, Robin. On his behalf.”
*****
Stars
The room went completely still as she entered, her petite frame swathed in a whisper of black silk and lace, lavender tresses pinned up in soft waves, and sapphires sparkling like stars along the long, smooth column of her neck.
Bumblebee approached cautiously, but her expression spoke of gratitude. “We weren’t sure if you’d come.”
Raven smiled. It was tiny, only a slight turn of her pretty lips, but for the first time in a year, it met her eyes. “Roy taught me the value of what it is to feel. It’s time I remembered that.”
They couldn’t agree more.
*****
Time
“This better be good.” She hadn’t bothered to lift her face from the pillows.
“Do I ever call without good reason?”
Raven sat up and pried one eye open, an expression of obvious skepticism in place.
“Speedy, do you have any idea what time it is?”
“Your time? Maybe three. Four.”
She glowered; he didn’t even have the grace to look remorseful. “If this is some ploy to see what I’m wearing…”
He shouted with laughter. “No, but I’ll have to remember that.”
“Roy-“
“Maybe I just wanted to hear your voice.”
She softened then. It was reason enough.
*****
Blue
The breath iced over in her chest, and for the first time in her life, Raven felt truly exposed. Nothing stood between them now. No barriers. No masks left to protect them.
“Don’t Raven. Don’t turn away from me this time.”
“You can’t give me this,” she whispered, shutting her eyes tightly when she felt the heat of his hands as he spun her around.
“I already have.”
“…I love him, Robin.”
A touch, soft and sure on the swell of her cheek. “I know.”
And she sensed his regret, heavy as the weight of his gaze, so very blue.
*****
Love
“You shouldn’t, you know.”
The archer paused to look at her there, with her cheek pressed against the glass as she watched rain stain the world a darker shade of gray and sheets that curled with soft light along the smooth plane of her back, and, not for the first time, thought her beautiful.
”Shouldn’t what?”
“…Love me,” she whispered.
“I shouldn’t do a lot of things, Raven,” he spoke, shirt forgotten on the floor as he folded around her, fingertips brushing the gentle curve of her face and forehead at rest against hers, “but that isn’t one of them.”
*****
Riddle
“Hasn’t anyone told you it’s rude to read over someone’s shoulder?” Raven intoned, pencil poised at her chin.
“E.”
“Excuse me?” She arched a delicate brow and turned to meet his cheeky grin.
“The answer to your riddle,” he motioned toward the puzzle book settled in her lap. “Eve had two, Adam had none, and everyone has three...it’s the letter e.”
“…You’re right,” she breathed. “Since when are you so good at riddles?”
“Hey! I figured you out, didn’t I?”
Her gaze sharpened. “…You read the answers, didn’t you?”
Speedy grinned sheepishly; so, maybe it was the other way around.
*****
Dark
Raven wasn’t entirely sure what prompted the question, and had it not been for the uncommon seriousness written in the turn of his mouth and the dire need she felt from him in the pull of her chest, she’d not have answered.
“…Lonely,” she breathed, surprising herself with the truth of it. “Dark. Like absolute night.”
His touch came in feather soft whispers along the silvery tracks of her skin, and she shuddered with the promise behind it. “Never again.”
“You can’t stop what death brings,” she murmured.
“No,” he agreed. “But I can follow you there, into the dark.”
*****
Luck
Speedy supposed it was a very good thing he didn’t believe in luck, otherwise he’d have been cursing his from the moment he’d drawn her name from that hat.
He could’ve taken the easy way out and gotten her what anyone else would have. And he nearly did. But just as his fingers grazed the spine of a particularly thick tome he realized…
He didn’t want to be like everyone else. At least not to Raven.
So, maybe he was a fool. Maybe she wouldn’t like what he’d chosen.
Or maybe, there was something to this luck thing, after all.
*****
Book
Raven’s hand stilled over ribbons and sparkling paper strewn carelessly and blinked in confusion.
It wasn’t a book.
It was always a book. Every year, every secret Santa drawing-it was as much a tradition as the Titan Christmas gathering itself.
And Raven didn’t mind. That they noticed her enjoyment of literature was enough. But this…
Carefully, she opened the envelope and removed the tickets as though they were fragile, glass figurines. “Les Miserables,” she breathed, oblivious to the fact they were all, but one, staring at her in stupefied curiosity.
“Rae?” Cyborg ventured. “You’re smiling.”
And, indeed, she was.
*****
Clouds
“I wanted to thank you.”
He let the arrow fly, striking the target dead center though he hadn’t taken his eyes from her since she stepped foot onto the training grounds.
“You knew it was me,” he stated, not surprised she’d figured it out.
She nodded, and though her hood was up, he could see the gentle flush of her cheeks like ruddy embers of dying afternoon light upon the dark of evening clouds.
“…Would…you like to go with me?”
He paused, facing her directly. “Do you want me to?”
“…I think I’d like that.”
Speedy grinned. “So would I.”
*****
Cold
It was easy to forget the world ever happened to people like Speedy. A hopeless flirt and something of an egomaniac, he was quick to smile and often the source of amusement for those around him.
Until those moments when he thought no one was around, where there was no laughter, and his smile was lost somewhere in the rubble of the day, buried in the firestorm of dusk.
Fire always brought the quiet.
And it was then she remembered, as he was silent and small and so very cold, that the world was merciless, and he knew it well.
*****
Sky
“Each ray of sunshine is seven minutes old,” he’d told her once when he was wrapped around her in the sand, and their eyes stretched out over the bay, watching evening fires smolder and turn the day to ash.
She turned slightly, into the crook of his neck, and could smell summer on his skin. “So, when I look to the sky, I see the past?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“Then the past is happening all around us,” she murmured.
“It is.”
“And the future?”
His touch whispered along the contours of her face as he met her lips and smiled. “Is this.”
*****
Fight
She could feel the fire in his skin wrapped so tightly around her wrists, on his lips ardent and fierce upon hers, in his unfettered gaze as he pulled away from her, pleading, and so very intense that she could not face him as he held her, there, against him.
“Please…don’t-“ unable to finish as his fingers moved to brush the hot tears slipping from beneath her lashes.
“Not this time, Raven,” he whispered insistently. “I won’t let go. I’m going to fight for you.”
Then he was gone, and the bruise on her heart was all that remained.
*****
Sleep
Speedy froze when he found her, stretched out in the dark along the couch with a book at rest on her stomach, and sleep settled on her skin like frost.
But it wasn’t the moon creeping through the glass in slips and tangles of warm blue light that flittered across the delicate lines of her face, which made him itch to touch her. And innocent vulnerability had nothing to do with why he watched over her until the night bled into hues of rose and gold and she stirred.
He slipped away, wondering if she always smiled in her sleep.
*****
Emotion
The moment they were alone he fell into her, lips and hands needy upon her skin, desperate to find the pulse and flush of life there, and Raven felt the emotion crush her like a tidal wave as he sank to his knees before her, trembling.
Relief.
And fear.
“Jesus, Raven,” he breathed, “I thought I lost you.”
She crumbled; taking his face in her palms, though she wasn’t certain which of them was supporting the other anymore. “Ssh, Roy,” she soothed. “It’s okay. I’m fine. It could’ve been worse.”
He held her tighter, knowing that, indeed, it could have.
*****
Beach
Arsenal often wondered just what she saw when she stared out across the sea, sometimes for hours, until the tide carried the beach away on its back, and the moon hung heavy in the sky.
Some nights, she didn’t come in at all, and he would find her in the sand, curled in on herself and lips blue from the cold. He would pull her to his chest then, and carry her inside while she rattled on about days long passed or ones that never were.
When he was lucky, she remembered his name as he kissed her good night.
*****
Ring
“Don’t you want to know what happened?” Speedy growled, spitting the blood from his mouth and ignoring the sting of split lips.
She was quiet for a while, tracing her fingers in feather strokes over the broken edges of his cheek, her energy mending the fragments below his skin. The ones that went far deeper than pieces of bone and the ugly purple ring around his eye.
And when she finally met his gaze, he realized that he didn’t need to say a word. It was a battle she’d been fighting all along, with bruises much heavier than his own.
*****
Hate
“It’s okay if you hate me,” his voice was serious yet soft, devoid of the tension and spite that poisoned the air between them for so many months now, and Robin stiffened upon hearing it, unable to set aside his empty mug or look away from the countertop littered with dishes.
“I’ll regret it, but I can live with it. But Raven…”
Robin looked up then, turning slowly, as though really listening. Maybe for the first time.
“…She cares about you.”
He wondered just what it had cost Speedy to admit the fact.
He wondered the same thing about himself.
*****
Holiday
It was in the things she didn’t say. Raven was quiet in her remorse. Doubly so in her affections. Yet it was there, in the soft curve of her mouth, in the way her eyes lit up like a holiday whenever he called.
And Robin saw. Through the silence and store-bought discretions she wore for him, he saw, and he knew.
He’d been wrong.
And his heart was a cherry bomb that burned and swelled in his chest, right before it blew itself apart. Because that light was never meant for him…
And who was he to put it out.
*****
Angel
She blinked rapidly, trying to rid the grit of sleep from her eyes to focus on him before she lost to the dark again, and a tiny smile crept onto her lips. He was there, sitting on the windowsill with the sun streaming in, burning the air around him into rivers of gold and turning him into an angel of fire.
“You came,” she rasped, and Speedy turned to face her, gaze soft and touch as warm as she’d dreamed when he reached out to brush the tips of his fingers lightly through her hair.
“For you,” he whispered, “always.”
*****
Picture
He found her on the roof, eyes glittering and lost between the moonlight and crumpled newspaper at her feet. She was beautiful. Tragic. Raw in the face of true emotion.
“What are you doing here, Roy?” she whispered.
“Cyborg called,” he replied quietly.
“Did he tell you I’m a murderer?”
“It was an accident, Raven.”
Her gaze wandered to the picture below the headlines, one dark and baleful eye staring back from the confines of the page.
“Was it?”
He took her in his arms, letting icy tears seep into his skin. It was the only answer he could offer.
*****
Snow
He smiled affectionately, and it was warm and serene despite the bitter chill she felt settle deep into his chest.
“You’re scared,” he said softly. Knowingly.
“No, Roy-“ but the half-hearted denial froze on her lips under the weight of his gaze.
“You think you don’t deserve this…us,” he continued, fingers ghosting the shadows of her face, burning her through like the snow.
“You’re scared. And it’s okay, Raven. Really. Because I’m not giving up on you. I’ll hold on for the both of us.”
“Why?” she breathed.
He sighed and tilted her chin. “We’re worth hanging on to.”
*****
Home
There was something infinitely lonely about the moment before dawn. The flutter of birds ceased, shadows deepened upon the black, and the space between heartbeats stretched on into nothing.
It was in this worldly synchronous breath that Raven wandered, lost; forgot what it was to be anything other than the hollow around her.
Until the sun stretched its golden fingers across the sky, and he stirred, bringing life flittering back in through the gray. And when he unconsciously drew her closer and breathed into her hair, the night drifted away with its ghosts.
And she smiled, remembering.
She was home.
*****
Forever
Raven sighed and eased onto the hood of the T-Car, looking out over the city below, into the deepening twilight. “So, you wanna tell me why we’ve stolen Cyborg’s car and driven into nowhere?”
The sky exploded into brilliant showers of color and spark as though in response, and he smiled at the pleasant turn of her mouth.
“Just thought we could forget the world for awhile.”
She nestled into his side, content to watch the fireworks paint the night and smiled, knowing it was all either of them could offer.
It wasn’t forever, but for now, it was enough.