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Three months had passed since Robin’s disappearance. Raven kept her sadness and frustration muted. What was the point? Starfire would burst into tears twice a day. Cyborg had reluctantly taken charge, but there was a sadness in his human eye that made it clear that he was nowhere as close to maintaining leadership the way Robin was.
Beast Boy tried to deal with the loss with jokes that were just so bad… His jokes never did land, but apparently, to Raven’s utmost surprise, they got worse. Not bad as in shocking or controversial, just bad. Why Beast Boy needed to hold up a piece of vegan cheese pizza and say “I’m gonna take a ‘piz-za’ this to go,” she would never know.
Raven didn’t let her sadness show. She bottled it up like she always did, because she was an empath. Starfire’s sadness made Cyborg’s and Beast Boy’s sadness even worse, and her reaction would just multiply their feelings and she could lose control of her powers.
And besides, she was getting better at bottling things up. This was another challenge. Despite the Teen Titans being the best family she had ever known, she had also assumed that they would eventually grow up and move away eventually. Robin’s disappearance was simply the first test.
It was nearing Thanksgiving when they got the signal of a break-in at the Wayne’s Industries Branch in Jump City. Jump City was too far south to get any sort of snow, but it was chillier than usual lately. Starfire loved the heat, so the chillier than usual weather just seemed to reflect her overall mood lately.
It was nighttime when they got to the building and were shocked to see none other than Robin there, dressed in what looked like Slade’s colors. It was unmistakable once she saw the silver ‘S’ on his chest.
They all overcame their shock before they started to fight. Raven immediately thought he was being mind-controlled or hypnotized. She didn’t want to risk going into his head and poking around when whatever was controlling him could affect her too. They needed to fight, capture him, and figure out later what exactly was going on.
Easier said than done.
Robin was an incredible fighter. Raven had always known that after seeing him take out grunt after grunt, go toe to toe with men 3-4 times his size, win battles strategically with incredible ease and acrobatic skill.
He seemed to be even more incredible as he placed himself in exactly the right place at exactly the right time during the fight, immediately going for everyone’s biggest weakness. She tried to cast a spell to hold him in place and he was immediately throwing a flash bang in her face, flooding her sight with bright blinding lights. Beast Boy and Cyborg didn’t fare as well either.
Starfire eventually stopped him, and for a moment, Raven wondered if Robin really was in control of that moment. She could feel this panic burst within him, the adrenaline from fighting no longer able to subdue his emotions.
And then suddenly Raven felt agony, blinding horrible agony. Like nothing she ever felt before… Something deep inside her felt like it was burning, tearing her apart from the inside. All she could do was collapse to the ground, barely holding back a scream.
“Please! Please stop! I’ll do whatever you want! I swear!” Robin cried out.
Not hypnotized. Raven didn’t have much time as she heard those words. She fought through the pain, resisting the urge with all her might not to pass out. As soon as the pain stopped, she cast her spell, sending it hurdling towards Robin. She could barely see, but the guilt and anguish that was radiating from Robin guided her directly towards him.
The dark bird-shaped spell touched his mind, and Raven was overloaded with images.
Ropes snapped as a man and a woman in a circus performance fell to their deaths.
Batman in a cave, lit up by computer lights, looking down at Raven, his cowl staring straight at her.
The next scene had Raven against a metal pole, wrists bound together, chained around a hook attached to the pole. Her male body was naked, blood streaming down, forming in a large puddle below her feet. She heard the crack of a whip and a horrible scream.
Raven.
It was Robin’s voice, bringing her out of the vision she was seeing. Going into another’s mind was always so tricky, and after that last scene, she was on the verge of breaking. Calm down. Calm down. Focus. You invaded his mind for a reason.
Robin seemed to understand this, as he leapt from building to building, trying to keep his own anguish and guilt in check. He didn’t have as much training as she did in suppressing emotions, but he did much better than expected after that last flash of a memory.
Robin was quick to pick up the hint and immediately started to speak to her. Slade used a device to flood your bodies with nanobots. They’ll tear you apart and kill you at the press of a button. You need to tell Cyborg to get them out as soon as he can.
Raven saw another flash of a memory. She was kneeling on the ground, seeing large screens on display. The names Koriandr, Victor Stone, Garfield Logan, and Rachel Roth were above four displays of a human models, shaded in black except glowing yellow dots that littered their bodies, right around where their blood vessels would be. Slade stood next to the screens with pride, holding a trigger strapped to his wrist.
Raven focused, bringing her sight back towards Robin’s current state. She understood now why he was missing this entire time. Why he was fighting them…
Slade’s blackmailing you, she thought aloud in horror.
Robin only felt relief at hearing those words. He stopped for a moment, as if to silently confirm to her what was going on. The anguish coming from him suddenly bubbled up, and so did all the aches and pains, bruises around his torso, the barely healed wounds across his back. His jaw was aching. She couldn’t identify half of the pain he was experiencing.
He’s torturing you.
A voice spoke up in Robin’s earpiece, sinister and cruel. “Your disobedience will have consequences. I want you back here in 20 minutes or they all die.”
You have to go, Raven, Robin urged her, terror and shame rising and clogging his throat as he picked up speed, racing across rooftops to stop Slade from killing them. You can’t be here when I go back to him.
We’ll get them out, Robin. Raven needed to reassure him of this. She had a feeling he needed to hear those words. We’ll get rid of the nanobots and then come for you. I need to know where his hideout is.
She pried into his past again, searching for the memory of the location that Robin left from in order to steal for Slade. She saw bits and pieces, flashes of old abandoned warehouses, deep into the sewers, even further into a large underground bunker. She was suddenly on her knees again, with the sound of metal cogs, with a dark menacing figure looming out the corner of her eyes, and then suddenly Slade was standing directly in front of her, unzipping his pants.
Raven stop!
“Raven!”
She was shoved out of his mind violently, the whiplash getting to her, Robin’s overpowering guilt, humiliation, and shame still echoing on in her head as she was forced back into her own consciousness. Beast Boy was in front of her, shaking her shoulder. She felt like she was about to throw up right in front of him.
The ‘A’ had fallen from the brightly lit 'Wayne' atop the skyscraper, but her emotions were too wildly out of her control to keep her magic in check. She looked past a scared Beast Boy, Cyborg, and Starfire, instead focusing on the letters on top of the building, her magic enclosing and crumpling each and every letter, glass shattering into bits and falling down like rain, flooding the area in darkness.
She let out a gasp, a mixture of shock and rage. Get it together. Calm down. Azarath metrion zinthos…
It was harder not to want to crush everything around her into dust knowing what she knew now.
The process of removing the nanobots from their bodies was a rigorously slow process. Raven had pressed Cyborg to go faster, but he told her that getting rid of nanomachines was definitely not easy work.
They each had to sit in a chair for 40 hours with leads attached to almost every piece of skin on their bodies. Cyborg had explained that they had to be incredibly thorough. Raven knew that it was a frustrating and tiring process for him, but she urged him to get it done as quickly as possible, willing to stay and help in any way she could.
Eventually she needed sleep, but Starfire was immediately just as serious about making the removal process a priority, willing to take her place and help Cyborg with developing the machine to get rid of them, and even volunteered to entertain Beast Boy while he sat in the chair to get all the machines removed. They all knew Beast Boy tried, but he had the worst reaction to sitting still for hours upon hours.
Finding Robin was the harder part. After two weeks of developing the machine to get rid of the nanobots, then another to actually get the deed done, Raven had them search sewer system after sewer system again for what had to be close to the 100th time, trying her best to piece the memories she saw from Robin. At least it was easier for the Titans to search for him this time, knowing for certain that he hadn't intentionally abandoned them. Eventually, after six days of searching and soaking up the constant sewer smell, they finally found the secret entryway that led into Slade’s hideout.
When they finally confronted Slade, Robin was there, standing by his side, but he was ready, immediately striking out at Slade once he saw his friends. Slade had apparently left fake screens up that showed the four of them still with the nanobots in their system. But Slade didn’t even attempt to press the button when they finally burst through the doors. Between blocking Robin’s kicks, he casually discarded the button to the floor, his single eye almost mocking them as he did so.
It took too much of Raven’s concentration not to let loose and hope her powers simply killed Slade. She really wished she could, but those same powers could kill any of her teammates just as easily. Still, they worked just as fluidly as a team, with Starfire expressing more than enough rage at the man for the whole team combined by how many starbolts she threw at him.
However, Slade was incredibly fast. He knew not to pick a fight, and instead rushed to escape back into the sewers as quickly as possible.
The team immediately looked to Robin, who looked… Gaunt, pale, thin, and far too exhausted to carry on chasing after Slade with the rest of them. It was a shock to see the contrast. Four months ago, Robin had been so single-minded, so determined, so ready to do anything to stop him. Now he looked like he could barely stand up. Cyborg, Starfire, Beast Boy and Raven all looked at each other at one point in agreeing that their leader was the priority.
Robin was still dressed in Slade’s clothes. Whatever happened to his uniform that he wore 4 months ago, it was long gone. Still, as they left the building, and then out of the sewers, Raven decided right before they reached the open air to unpin her cloak and settle it over Robin’s shoulders.
Robin flinched at the touch, but was shocked, along with everyone else as they never saw Raven without her dark purple cloak.
“Whoa,” Beast Boy said.
“I don’t think I ever saw you without your cloak, Raven,” Cyborg said.
“Don’t make a thing of it,” Raven said quickly, trying to push away her sudden embarassment. “Robin needs it more than I do.”
Starfire smiled, unable to help herself. “That was very kind of you to do, Raven.”
Robin looked grateful but remained silent. He had barely said a word except for short, clipped answers to the team’s questions. The cloak was long enough to hide the small limp that he was making with every step forwards. Starfire still noticed, and offered to help him every time, but he shook his head and shied away from her touch whenever possible.
They got to Cyborg’s car and drove back, the ride quieter than expected. Raven sat in the back seat behind Cyborg. Starfire in the middle, with Beast Boy on the other side behind Robin in the front passenger seat. Raven had a clear view of Robin staring out the window, fully entranced by the view. The car ride was quiet until Starfire suddenly broke the silence.
“Robin we are so glad that you are okay and safe with us again,” Starfire said from the backseat. “We must celebrate this momentous occasion with colorful triangles on string and helium filled bubbles!”
“Yes!” Beast Boy said proudly. “I’m so stocked and ready to make 10 bowlfuls of vegan buttered popcorn!”
Cyborg was a bit more pragmatic. “Robin… We’ll need to at least do a basic physical when you get back.”
“I know,” Robin replied, his voice cracking. He was clearly not looking forward it.
“Aw c’mon guys,” Beast Boy chided them from the back seat. “Doctor Cyborg can wait. We finally got Robin back! It’s time to-”
“No,” Robin interrupted, his tone harsh, immediately reverting into leader-mode. It was like he wasn’t even gone. “This is important Beast Boy. It has to wait.”
“Robin,” Starfire started to say concernedly. Robin’s shoulders tensed in response. “When you were with Slade, did he-”
Before she could finish, Raven grabbed her hand to get her attention. Starfire looked over at her as Raven shook her head. The questions needed to wait.
Raven had been very careful to tell the team only what Robin told her after he stole from Wayne Enterprises. The memories she saw weren’t absolute confirmation anyway that what she had suspected had happened. Still, she could piece a few things together, and none of them seemed good to ask about until Robin was ready.
Unfortunately, Cyborg was right. They needed to do a physical and get whatever information Robin could give about Slade as quickly as possible. Raven wasn’t sure she was prepared for whatever came up during that time.
They arrived at the tower not long after. Robin still clutched at Raven’s cloak, still ashamed to be wearing Slade’s clothes, but he couldn’t take them off just yet. Raven hurried back to her room to grab another cloak while Robin and Cyborg went down to the medical room.
Starfire was waiting outside her door, holding up a folded-up version of Robin’s classic uniform. The old eye mask rested on top. “Raven, is Robin going to be healthy and happy as he was before? I fear his time gone has changed him more than the others anticipate.”
Raven swallowed. “He just needs some time and space to recover.”
Starfire nodded before she handed Raven the clothes. “Here. I will be sending prayers to X’Hal that his old clothes will greatly improve his disposition.”
Raven nodded and took the clothes from Starfire. They both knew Robin was acting different. The Robin they all knew stuck to Starfire’s side like glue half the time. He was quiet sometimes, but usually smiling, positive, and confident, never the one to turn down a team celebration when offered.
This Robin seemed in to be in shock, emotionless, nearly unresponsive. He looked utterly exhausted. They all were, but it finally hit Raven that while they had all battled sleep deprivation in the last month to find and save Robin, their own leader was dealing with his own kind of nightmare.
Raven walked down to the Titans Tower infirmary, knocking before walking in as Robin chugged a glass full of water while sitting on the exam chair.
“You lost one fourth of your body weight,” Cyborg announced, shocked by the numbers. “When was the last time you ate?”
Robin shrugged. “I wasn’t able to keep track of time. What even is the date?”
“December 17th,” Raven answered as she set aside Robin’s uniform on a nearby chair. His true uniform.
Robin set down the glass on a tray nearby. Raven could feel her answer hit him like a ton of bricks. She noticed that he had purposefully avoided answering Cyborg’s question about eating.
Cyborg tried to help him out a bit more. “You raided Wayne Enterprises on November 11th. We managed to remove the nanobots from everyone by-”
“Don’t,” Robin interrupted him, pressing his fingers to his temples. “I don’t need to know those details right now.”
Robin took a moment and let out a shudder and a sigh. Raven and Cyborg glanced at each other with worry.
“Slade Wilson is his full name,” Robin explained. “Age is fifty-four. Standing about six foot three, whitish gray hair, one gray eye… The other was always covered with an eyepatch when he took off his mask. He was military trained. Worked for the CIA for a while during the Vietnam War… All of his records were erased once he underwent experimentation by the US government to create metahuman soldiers. He’s enhanced.”
Raven and Cyborg held their breath. “Enhanced how?” Cyborg asked.
Robin shivered. “Increased rate of healing. Enhanced strength and speed. The aging process slowed down. I-I don’t know what else.”
“How did you even get this information?” Cyborg asked.
Robin sighed. “He had records, of himself, and on all of us. Most of it was medical records.”
Robin then clutched his arms tightly. “We’re both A positive. He gave me a few blood transfusions sometime before November 11th.”
“Blood transfusions for what?” Cyborg asked, horrified.
Robin shrugged in response. Raven could make a few assumptions. Slade could have beaten him badly enough for him to need a blood transfusion or he wanted Robin to be as enhanced as he was. Or both…
“We need to take a blood sample then,” Raven said, saying the words that neither Cyborg nor Robin wanted to say aloud.
Robin jerked his head in quick nod before looking down at his clothes. The long sleeves of Slade’s uniform wouldn’t do. He would need to remove his shirt.
Raven grabbed collection tubes from a nearby shelf while Cyborg prepped the needle. Robin took the hint and slowly pulled up his shirt over his head, wincing with every movement.
Raven could understand now why he was flinching. She and Cyborg watched as Robin uncovered several jagged scars and large black and blue marks all along his ribcage and stomach. There were more purple and blue handprints across his arms. Raven had seen the occasional nasty bruise or cut on Robin’s skin before, but this seemed beyond excessive.
“Did Slade break all of your ribs at once?” Cyborg asked. “Rob, you told us you were fine.”
“I am,” Robin replied stubbornly. Raven knew that was a lie, but she wasn’t about to point that out.
“Maybe we should check-”
“Just get the sample, Cyborg,” Raven said, interrupting him. She held out the collection tubes and grabbed his cybernetic arm before he could start prodding at Robin’s ribs.
Cyborg huffed and then moved the empty cup from the tray so Robin could rest his arm on top. He placed a quick tourniquet on his upper arm, wiped the crook of his elbow down with an alcohol swab, and injected the needle into the most visible vein.
Robin winced, moving his free hand to his mouth and turning his head away. Raven was about to levitate the wastebin from across the room so that Robin had something to throw up in, but Robin merely made dry-heaving sounds. As far as she knew, their team leader had never reacted this strongly to needles before.
They managed to fill three vials with blood before Robin looked like he was about to pass out from dizziness.
“That should be enough for now,” Cyborg assured him. “We can take more blood for testing once you gain some of that weight back.”
Raven helped store the blood samples in the mini freezer while Cyborg left to grab a protein shake for Robin. The Titans Tower infirmary was dead silent while Raven waited, making sure Robin didn’t pass out and fall out of his chair.
Cyborg returned and set the drink on his tray before returning back to the computer to type out the mission report results. Raven watched as Robin grabbed the shake and forced himself to drink as slowly as he could. Still, it didn’t take long for him to nearly chug it all down like a starving man in a desert.
“Cyborg,” Robin said hesitantly after he finished and set the cup aside. “You don’t have to be here. I’d really prefer it if it was just Raven here for the rest.”
Cyborg turned around in his seat and looked like he wanted to argue, but Raven gave him a quick glare that shut whatever argument he was going to make right down.
“That means you too, Beast Boy,” Raven announced loudly, eyes turning towards the infirmary door.
The three of them heard Beast Boy groan from the room outside. Of course, Beast Boy couldn’t help himself sometimes. It took some pretty gruesome visuals to convince the curious kid to never even touch her bedroom door unless it was an emergency. Having Robin return like this was bound to make him nosy.
“C’mon Beast Boy,” Cyborg said outside the door. “We promised everyone 10 bowls of popcorn and it better have heaps of butter on it, just the way I like it!”
Beast Boy started to argue with him about the ingredients, but their voices eventually faded, leaving Robin and Raven with enough privacy in the infirmary again.
When Raven had deemed through her own senses that Cyborg and Beast Boy had left, she turned to Robin, who had clutched her borrowed cape nervously, trying to huddle underneath it once more.
“Did you tell anyone?” Robin asked, almost a whisper.
Raven wasn't sure she knew exactly what Robin was talking about, but she had an idea. “No. Just what you told me through our link. Everything else wasn’t my story to tell.”
Robin looked at the ground, unable to look her in the eye, his knuckles white. “Raven… I’m… I’m sorry to get you involved in this, but…”
It took a moment for Robin to say the words aloud. He struggled, trying to catch his breath, voice choking before he finally got the words out. “I’m g-going to need a… a sexual assault e-evidence kit.”
It confirmed everything Raven needed to know. She didn’t react, and that was probably what Robin wanted. She could sense that was what most of the rape victims they encountered wanted. She was always the one to help take girls to the hospital whenever the team came across a situation like this. Starfire wanted to help escort, but she had gotten way too upset and angry whenever they came across a sexual assault case. They had all agreed that Raven had the better disposition.
Even though Raven had suspected, it still hurt to have it confirmed. Slade sexually assaulted him. Slade raped an underage 15-year-old boy. This was bigger than the team would have ever anticipated.
“If it’s any consolation, I’m sorry,” Raven said, trying to keep her emotions calm and collected. She had prepared for this moment, but it was still difficult to accept.
“If we… if we ever do get Slade in a courtroom and if he’s done this to…” Robin sank his fingers in his hair, stuttering through his thought process, struggling to breathe through each phrase. “If he’s done this to someone else… Which is… It’s likely, he did… and they came forward. My evidence might help…”
Robin trailed off, and Raven didn’t bother asking him to finish. She got the point. It was beyond admirable that Robin was even willing to endure this in case Slade had other victims that might want to come forward. She had always known Robin was a good person. This made it perfectly clear just how much he was willing to go to help others.
They kept stock of a number of things that a hospital or forensic team uses, just in case cops did need evidence from the crime scene of whatever criminal the Titans stopped. Robin was the one who pushed on that. He had always made sure that they had plenty of forensic supplies they could use to convict the occasional criminal with a really good lawyer.
Still, she never ever thought she’d be pulling out the kit stored in their closet now. It was full of paper bags with yellow plastic seals, large paper sheets, forms, plenty of swabs, and two hospital gowns that extended beyond the knee. Thank Azarath that the hospital gowns covered more than the standard ones they usually gave out at Jump City General.
She set them aside and then grabbed the forms first. She tried to clear her throat in attempt to get her voice back, but even she seemed to have trouble speaking. The questions were very basic. Everything from ‘do you have cancer?’ to ‘do you take any medications?’ Raven was starting to believe the form that the hospital gave them was pointless when the next question came up.
“Did you have consensual intercourse in the last 72 hours?”
Robin instinctively hunched over at that question. “No.”
Raven checked off that question on the form.
“Estimate when the non-consensual event took place?” Raven began to ask, and then corrected herself. It was still so hard to believe Robin had to put up with this for four entire months. “When-when did the most recent non-consensual event take place?”
Robin buried his face in his hands. “I never saw a clock. It was too hard to keep track of time. He didn’t… He didn’t…” He shuddered. “It had to be only a few hours before you guys came.”
“Five hours sound like a good estimate?” Raven asked, trying to estimate if that would be likely for a person’s late night sleep schedule. They had found Slade’s hideout in the early morning and he happened to be awake and ready, but most of his crimes took place during or close to nighttime.
Robin lifted his head up, brows wrinkled in thought, struggling to estimate the time. “Yeah… Um… Wait, no… Maybe three.”
There was an uncomfortable pause when Robin started to speak again. “I would’ve showered and then I might not have bothered doing this at all, but I couldn’t yet… not until he allowed…” He trailed off, suddenly unable to finish that sentence.
Raven was careful not to react. The thought that Slade withheld Robin from bathing after being raped seemed like another level beyond cruel. Azarath metrion zinthos… She couldn’t afford to be surprised like this. It was better to assume the worst. Yet assuming the worst had happened to Robin was also so very painful to imagine.
“It would be helpful to have a description of what we’re looking for in terms of evidence,” Raven suggested.
“I…” Robin began, then became upset at his own reaction before giving up. “I’ll… I’ll write it all down myself. Just do the basics. Please…”
“Right,” Raven said, taking a deep breath. “Just remember you can refuse to do any part at any time. Got it?”
Robin gave her a nod and then let her begin.
Raven put on some latex gloves and proceeded with the oral swab, pulling out the swab as Robin hesitantly opened his mouth. She was really grateful that they had both had been instructed on how the exam worked, meaning that everything that Raven would do was predictable to Robin. He knew why each and every swab and piece to collect was important.
She took the swab back after having to swipe through almost every part of Robin’s mouth and then wiped the swab onto a glass slide, labeled and stored it, and then placed the swab back into the designated box. She tried to focus on keeping everything organized. It was a better distraction than having to acknowledge what would eventually take place next.
She used her powers to levitate a series of the paper sheets in a circle right in front of Robin’s feet. Once she finished setting the sheets on the floor, she looked to Robin, who had an almost resigned look on his face as he shed Raven’s old cloak and limped slightly, wincing in pain as he adjusted himself in the center of the circle full of paper sheets.
When you lived with other teenagers and shared a bathroom, you were going to see some naked bodies. That was just a fact of life. Raven had always been careful not to go outside of her room without her standard unitard and cloak on at all times, but as far as she knew, she and Robin were the only ones who shared that standard of modesty.
Whenever Cyborg or Beast Boy had to use the shower, they would confidently walk around in nothing but a towel. Starfire was the same. There were times when Raven opened the bathroom door when Cyborg forgot to lock it. Starfire would sometimes get distracted, by ‘cute little bugs’ or a number of other things that occurred in the hallways of Titan Tower, so Raven had unwittingly seen Starfire’s towel slip at least twice on her way back to her room. Beast Boy was just an asshole who was raised with no manners and so Raven had threatened to hang him with his intestines the last time he left the door open while taking a piss.
Robin had always maintained a sense of privacy that the others didn’t. Sure, he let other people into his room, so he wasn’t as extreme as Raven, but he always kept the doors locked when he needed to. Raven had only seen him with his shirt off a few times, usually after getting sweaty and gross after spending a few hours in the weight room.
Raven handed Robin the two hospital gowns when he stood up. He first peeled off his gloves and then put on the two gowns himself, layering one over the other, tying each tie with shaky hands. Robin then hesitantly proceeded to reach underneath the gown to strip out of his boots and pants.
Raven couldn’t see much beyond Robin’s thin, bruised knees, but they both became horribly uncomfortable by the act. The fact that Robin was had been violated like this, and then had to dress in a hospital gown, not his old uniform that she was so used to seeing. The urge to leave the room was building up inside her. She shouldn’t be here. Not with Robin like this…
She pushed those thoughts aside and concentrated, using her magic to collect the black gloves and the shirt with the metal ‘S’ on it and placing them both in separate paper bags. Robin had left the pants on the paper sheet, so Raven hovered the pants into another separate bag before setting them aside. She did the same with his shoes.
She then proceeded to levitate and fold up each paper sheet that had been set around Robin and moved them carefully into envelopes. Without context, it looked like some sort of séance, like she was casting a spell and Robin was the sacrifice. Of course, it was anything but, but Raven could appreciate using her magic for more scientific means for once.
She couldn’t see much of what might have come off when Robin had removed his pants, but she was a bit more hopeful when she managed to collect a few hairs on the paper sheets. One of the hairs looked much lighter than Robin’s. It was a single thin white strand. She stared at it, like confirmation that Slade was there. Slade had raped her friend. Slade was a rapist pedophilic…
Calm down. You can’t lose control now.
“Underwear?” Raven asked gently.
Robin shook his head. “He didn’t… He didn’t give me any.” Robin tried to collect his breath. “The… the pants… They should have…”
“Got it,” Raven assured him, taking extra care to make sure the yellow seal on the bag containing his pants held tight. “Do you want to take any pictures for evidence?”
Robin gave it a thought for a moment before shaking his head. “N-no… If it’s not absolutely necessary, then…”
“Do you need me to heal anything, then?” Raven asked.
“Right,” Robin said nervously, wrapping his arms around himself, then adjusting uncomfortably when he touched the bruises along his torso again. “Um…My ribs, maybe.”
Raven nodded and prepped her hands for the white shimmering spell. She reached forwards, just as Robin tensed up. She didn’t need to touch him, but she did need to get close.
As far as she knew, it didn’t look like anything was broken, nothing that hadn’t already healed already, but she was able to repair some of the bruising and aches. She wouldn’t be able to tell the extent of what she healed since she couldn’t see under his gown, and she wasn’t going to tell him to remove it either. She did the best she could before moving her arms away.
“Thanks,” Robin said in a small voice.
“You’re welcome,” Raven replied sincerely. She was happy to provide this for the team when she could, even though it wasn’t powerful enough to heal extensive damage like broken bones. “Anywhere else?”
Robin shook his head. Raven waited, just in case he changed his mind. She let the tense silence ring out before finally bringing up the elephant in the room.
“Robin, your mask.”
“I’m not submitting it for evidence,” Robin replied quickly. “I can provide an alias for the suit and any of my DNA, but the mask would be too similar to not make a connection.”
Raven nodded, somewhat relieved herself. She knew the mask was important to Robin. Similar to how Raven never went around without her attire, Robin never let anyone see him without his mask. She wouldn’t push this when it wasn’t necessary.
Instead, she grabbed the UV light. “I’m going to dim the lights. We should start top to bottom.”
Robin gave another jerking motion that he was listening before Raven dimmed the lights and then turned the handhold UV light on. She stepped forwards, just as Robin nervously untied the top section of both hospital gowns, shivering and wincing as he clutched the gown pieces still covering his bottom half.
“Are you cold?” Raven asked. “I can turn up the heat a bit.”
Robin shook his head. “Not cold. Let’s just get this over with.”
Raven took a closer look with the UV light all along Robin’s skin. There wasn’t much on his front that she could deem useful enough for a sample. However, once she moved behind him, and got a glimpse of the crisscrossed pattern of scabbed up scars all down his back, it was a different story. She noticed the significant glow on the arch between his neck and shoulder shaped in the classic bite mark pattern. She grabbed another swab.
“I’ll have to take a sample from the back of your neck,” Raven assured him. “You’ll feel a wet swab there.” Robin didn’t respond, merely flinching when the cotton touched his neck.
Raven took a few more careful examinations of Robin’s top half before nodding to Robin, motioning that they’d have to look below his waist. Robin pulled and tied the two top sections of the hospital gown back on and then reached for the lower half and stopped.
“Raven,” Robin said, his voice cracking again. “Can you… Can you just direct me? I can… I can take the next samples. I don’t think I can handle…”
Raven obeyed, immediately turning to hand him disposable gloves and waiting for him to put them on. It was breaking protocol, but she didn’t care. If Robin didn’t want her to perform the procedure, she wasn’t going to do it. They might not get the best samples this way but having that ounce of control over the situation seemed to put Robin at ease.
Raven watched as Robin hesitantly lifted the side of his gown, only revealing up to his thigh. She slowly moved the UV lamp over his leg, noticing immediately that the upper inside of his thigh had a spot they needed to take a sample from.
“Here,” she said, handing him a swab and moving the UV lamp closer. She could tell Robin wanted to take a step back to maintain a comfortable distance, but he resisted. Robin leaned down and tried to aim for where she pointed the UV lamp and missed, merely swabbing the skin below it.
She took the swab from him, threw it away, and calmly handed him another one. “It’s up a bit further. Right below where you have the gown covered.” She kept all her emotions closed off, forcing herself to act as clinical as possible.
Thankfully, Robin got the correct location the second time before shakily handing her the swab to place on a slide and store. They repeated the process on his other leg. Raven was almost finished when she spotted another sample on his left heel.
“Another on your heel,” Raven said.
He started to bend down to look at it.
“Don’t move. I’ll get this one,” Raven assured him.
She levitated the next swab over and used it to collect the sample on his heel. Robin didn’t react as badly to this one thankfully. And then she finished by wiping the swab onto another slide before labeling it and storing it in the kit.
Next, Raven turned the lights back on fully and unpackaged two sterile combs and grabbed another sheet of paper. She handed Robin the first comb and patted her own head to show him what she needed.
“Head first,” she reassured him.
Robin obeyed. His hair looked somewhat dry and thinner. Raven was used to seeing it full of hair gel and thicker, so much more lively compared to now. Though seeing it flattened, dry, and thin wasn’t much of a surprise after Cyborg confirmed that he had lost so much weight in less than 4 months. She supposed starving would do that to you as she watched Robin quickly drag the comb through his flattened hair.
He handed her the comb that collected a few bits of black hair and then she handed him the second comb, while also moving the sheet of paper underneath his legs with her magic.
Robin stared at the comb for a moment, hands shaking before he tucked the comb underneath his gown, shuddering as he combed through his pubic hair. Raven wanted to turn away, but she had to confirm that enough hair would be collected on the sheet. She focused her vision on that sheet of paper, avoiding looking at Robin entirely, who instinctively turned away from her while performing the deed.
As soon as a few hairs landed, Raven spoke up. “Got it.” She slowly hovered the sheet of paper up so that Robin could place the comb on top of the sheet before she used her magic to fold the hairs and comb into the paper before storing it in another envelope. She labeled each of those envelopes as well before grabbing another set of swabs.
“This is for…” Raven began, unable to finish the sentence.
“I know,” Robin replied back quickly before he gripped his arms tightly, afraid to take the swabs.
“You don’t have to do this section,” Raven suggested. “Or I can leave the room if you want.”
“Please leave the room,” Robin said, nearly a whisper.
Raven was tempted to correct him. He didn’t need to worry about offending her. She wanted to tell him that all of this was fine. He was the one volunteering for this, and he could refuse to do any part of the test. She was willing to do just about anything to help make the process easier on him. Instead, she quickly walked towards the exit and stepped right outside, pressing her back against the door.
There was a sudden flood of emotions in that moment. She couldn’t tell if they were from her or Robin or both, but she was forced to rip a metal tile out of the ceiling and crumple it into a tiny little ball as tears leaked out of her eyes. She smacked her hand to her mouth. She didn’t want Robin to hear her cry, not when what he was going through was so much worse. She was pretty sure she heard a whimper coming from inside the infirmary, but she wasn’t 100% certain that it hadn’t come from her own mouth.
She waited, trying to stay quiet and wiping away her tears, listening carefully in case Robin needed her help again. It took a few minutes until Robin called for her.
Robin had gotten dressed into the uniform Starfire had left for him, his eye mask was even replaced. He must have cried while changing masks because there were tear tracks left on his face. At the very least, Starfire was somewhat correct that the uniform made him look a bit more like himself, even though his clothes looked baggier on him. Raven looked over at the desk and spotted a swab with blood on it. Robin noticed and quickly put the swab into the container.
Robin turned back to the box full of samples and slides, storing them all in a larger box that they would have to send to the hospital.
“I have a contact in Jump City General that can take this for us,” Robin explained, his voice flat, emotionless, and cold. “She’ll have it submitted to local police but won’t be pressing charges unless…” He paused and struggled to take a breath. “Unless Slade is caught... If anyone asks, we rescued another person who was kidnapped and escorted them to the hospital where they took the sample.”
Robin gripped the table tightly. Raven imagined that if their leader had super strength, he would have crumpled the table out of stress. “I… I can explain to the group later why it’s better if we just say I was gone for a week, right around the time I stole from Wayne Enterprises. I didn’t come into contact with anyone else outside of that incident.”
Raven didn’t say anything. She merely nodded, finding the ground more interesting to stare at than before.
“Raven,” Robin said, turning around. Raven looked up and saw the desperate look on his face. “Please… Please don’t tell anyone about this. Not anyone on the team. No electronic reports beyond what Cyborg entered. I... I know I wasn’t a good leader before I disappeared, but I realize now that I messed up and I’m going to work on fixing it now.”
“Robin,” Raven said incredulously. “You’ve always been a great leader. And if you told the team, no one would blame you for what happened.”
Robin let out what seemed like a laugh but ended up more like a choked sob. “You should blame me.”
“No, Robin-”
“I didn’t end things well with any of you, and then I made the mistake of separating from the team. Us separating like that… It can’t happen anymore. Not with any of us…”
Before Raven could argue, Robin finished setting up the package. “Can you watch this for me? I just need to get the urine sample and shower before we send this off to Jump City General.”
“…Sure,” Raven replied. She would guard it with her life if she had to. After going through all that, after taking so much away from their team and so much more from Robin, this package was their one hope that they’d get something on Slade.
After meditating for over a half hour in the infirmary, Robin opened the door. His hair was wet. His skin pink from what Raven could assume was a very hot shower. He carried a sealed plastic container full of urine that he set in the box before sealing the kit fully.
“Cyborg agreed to drive us there,” Robin explained, his voice as emotionless as before.
Raven gracefully unfolded her legs and landed on her feet from the floating position she was in. She turned and followed him out.
Starfire and Beast Boy stayed behind this time to set up the party for when Robin returned. Cyborg drove, with Robin in the passenger seat again, and Raven in the back.
“You okay, Rob?” Cyborg said in the car as they drove to the hospital.
“Yeah,” Robin said, his voice distant. He stared out the window again, avoiding looking at either of his friends. His answer didn’t sound at all convincing, but Cyborg took it in stride.
“Good,” Cyborg replied. “And it’s good that you’re reaching out to Raven about things. Just know you can talk to any of us, okay? And if you need anything at all… A vacation or a therapist or whatever, we can work something out, alright?”
Robin’s grip on the box tightened. Raven noticed the carboard bend slightly in his hands. They had reinforced it so that the blood samples would remain safe and cold. Still, if he tore the cardboard up here and now, then Cyborg might demand an explanation for the other items inside.
“Robin,” Raven pointed out. “The box.”
Robin looked down and immediately released his death grip on the package. He took another shuddering breath. “Sorry, I just… I just want to finish this and get back to the party.”
Cyborg grinned. “That’s what I’m talking about! You might not be able to stomach Beast Boy’s popcorn just yet, but I’ve got some homecooked beef stew that’ll get you right back into hero-working order.”
Robin turned to Cyborg and gave him a small grateful smile. “Thanks Cyborg.”
It wasn’t long before they got to Jump City General.
“I can go in alone,” Robin said as he unbuckled his seatbelt.
“I’ll go with you,” Raven replied quickly, giving him a look that indicated that this wasn’t up for debate.
Cyborg stretched his arms and relaxed in the driver’s seat. “Take all the time you need then. I just installed new speakers in here and it’ll be good to finally test them out.”
Robin got out of the car and then suspiciously looked around the hospital parking lot. Raven stepped beside him, wondering if he wasn’t taking that ‘we don’t get separated anymore’ rule beyond just fighting with Slade.
“Please be careful,” Robin pleaded to Cyborg through the side window.
Cyborg stared at him for a moment and smirked. “You know I haven’t heard someone say that to me in years. Seriously Rob, I’ll be fine out here. Go get your spiky paranoid little head in there and drop off the samples.”
Raven and Robin turned and walked in through the automated doors into the Jump City General. Immediately they both received plenty of stares, smiles and waves from some of the people inside. The team never let the attention bother them, but Raven found it easier to handle when they were all together as a group. Now it felt oppressive, and she could sense Robin grow more tense because of it.
They kept walking along the hallway and got on the elevator up to the fourth floor. Raven hadn’t been involved in working with any of the connections Robin had outside of the team. Police, hospitals, forensic teams… She hadn’t bothered to get herself involved, and she knew that most of the team didn’t either, besides Cyborg, who knew a few people that ran experimental labs.
Robin, of course, being one of the few people on the team who actually had experience being a hero beforehand, had negotiated everything. She knew why. Being Batman’s protégé carried weight that authorities paid attention to. At least, most of the time it did…
As soon as Robin and Raven stepped on the fourth floor, they walked up to the nearest desk. The nurse at the desk took one good look at them with skeptical eyes.
“The psych ward is up another floor,” she said simply.
“We’re here to see Gail,” Robin said, ignoring the jab.
The nurse sighed, seemingly annoyed that she was interrupted. “Just a moment. Wait here.” She then walked down the hallway.
They waited for a few minutes until a nurse dressed in pink heart designed scrubs with greying hair, tired eyes, and single incredulously raised eyebrow. “Well then. Leslie warned me you might show up at some point.”
“Hi Gail,” Robin replied with a polite smile. “We need a favor.”
“What can I do for you?” Gail asked, looking at the package.
“I need you to submit an anonymous…” Robin swallowed and recovered before his voice could give out. “An anonymous sexual assault evidence kit for testing.” He gently handed the package to her.
Gail’s face turned serious. She opened the box and looked through the evidence, first checking the written forms, before opening the cold box storing the blood samples.
“There’s not a lot of blood vials here,” she observed.
“We’ll bring more soon,” Raven replied.
“We’ll need it,” Gail replied. “Especially for the STD tests. Is there an address listed to send those results to if something comes up?”
Raven and Robin became quiet. Raven knew why. Anything just addressed to Titans Tower was opened by whoever got to it first. Mail and packages addressed to Robin were usually some fascinating new tech or blueprints. Cyborg, Beast Boy, and even Starfire hadn’t been able to resist the temptation to see what fascinating new toy Robin would get. If any of them didn’t pay attention to the sender…
Raven supposed having any of them open a letter that gave out Robin’s STD results would be disastrous.
“Address it to Rachel Roth at Titans Tower,” Raven replied. She didn’t get mail much, but no one dared to open up letters with her name on it when she did.
Robin gave her a look of relief and gratitude.
“Got it,” Gail said, writing the address down. “You are welcome to tell the victim to come in to get the blood taken here. That’d probably be easier, and then I don’t have to fake any medical records.”
“Sorry,” Robin replied with a frown. “It had to be done this way.”
Gail nodded. “I’ll call up Leslie and see how she handles this stuff.”
“Gail,” Robin said giving her a fearful look. “Don’t tell Batman about this.”
Gail looked like she was going to argue, but silently nodded instead, folding up the evidence in the box and taking it with her.
Robin and Raven stood there for a moment, watching her take the evidence away, off to be analyzed in a forensic lab. If what Robin said was correct, then this would be the first record of Slade’s existence in a very long time, but it was another small step towards taking him down.
Raven turned to Robin, sensing a change in his shocked, detached disposition. She sensed a building fear going through him ever since he handed Gail the package.
“Robin,” Raven said, waking him from his paralyzed state. “Let’s go.”
Robin nodded and followed Raven back towards the elevators. His growing fear wasn’t going away. Raven gave him another glance. He was giving a very good effort to make it look like he wasn’t fazed at all, but Raven was a very talented and sensitive empath. She knew better.
“Let’s take the stairs,” Raven suggested, and Robin meekly followed her without argument.
They started to go down the stairwell silently. Raven waited, anticipating the moment that it would really hit. Robin’s fear was giving her a headache it was so overwhelming. It was then that she knew that Robin was about to have a panic attack.
He did his best to hide it. He kept walking down the stairs, trying to put on the air of being fine. They got down 2 flights of stairs before Robin started wheezing uncontrollably.
“Robin, stop,” Raven said, and Robin obeyed, gasping for breath. “Take a moment to breathe.”
Robin moved away from the railing and pressed his back to the wall. His whole body was shaking. He wrapped his arms around himself and leaned forwards, as if trying to stand up and crouch into a ball at the same time.
Raven stood next to him, leaning against the wall by his side, careful to maintain a comfortable distance. “Do you need anything? I can see if one of our fans can get you a water from the cafeteria.”
Robin shook his head. “No… no I don’t need…” He pulled his hands into his hair and gasped. “Oh god… I… I just want this to end.”
Raven gave him a calm and patient look. “Focus on breathing, Robin,” she advised him. “Mouth ‘Azarath metrion zinthos’ a few times with me. Try breathing in and out on every syllable. Az-a-rath me-tri-on zin-thos… Az-a-rath me-tri-on zin-thos… Az-a-rath…”
Robin went along with her instructions, barely speaking, struggling but eventually getting his breathing under control. Raven recited the words carefully and waited until he started to calm down.
By the end of it, Robin had broken out into a cold sweat, but he managed to stop shaking, and his breathing went back to normal. He didn’t move from his spot against the wall and avoided looking at Raven in shame.
Raven didn’t urge him to move either. Cyborg could wait and enjoy listening to music in his car for the next 3 hours if they needed to.
“Want to talk about it?” Raven asked.
Robin remained silent, giving no response. Raven bit her lip before speaking again.
“Panic attacks don’t always have a cause, but yours seemed to start when you gave Gail the package,” Raven observed, informing him that she knew this probably didn’t happen out of nowhere.
Robin looked up, yet still avoiding looking at her, staring off into the distance. “Batman and I… We’d get cases where… Where a victim would get dragged into an alleyway, or somewhere else by a criminal or group of criminals… We’d stop it from happening, and we always recommend getting a kit done so that the police had the evidence to prosecute.”
Robin took a shuddering breath. “So, I kept thinking… That’s what I was supposed to do now. Just gather all the evidence right away. That’s what needed to be done.”
He buried his face into his hands. “But then I gave Gail the kit and I thought, what if they figure it out? What if they think it’s all fake? What if they can tell that I didn’t fight back?”
Raven frowned. “Robin… It doesn’t make a difference whether you fought back or not.”
“No, I…” Robin protested, his voice cracking, growing weak and strained. “Sometimes, not always… Sometimes I had a choice… Sometimes I chose the training… Except the training kept getting worse and worse… Bad enough that I needed the transfusion… And I didn’t know what would happen to me after whatever they injected in him, and I just wanted to stop hurting, so then I picked the other option… I didn't know what else to do, so I...”
Robin let out a sob. “Oh god, I had sex with him. I had sex with Slade…”
Raven stepped away from the wall so she could stand in front of her friend. “Listen to me,” she said in a low serious voice, and for the first time since they stopped, Robin finally looked up at her. “If your options are letting us die or getting tortured yourself until you nearly die of blood loss, that’s not a choice. And this wasn’t sex, not for one single moment. This was rape.”
Raven took a deep breath, trying to keep herself calm for Robin. She wanted to strangle Slade with his own insides so badly. “This was rape, and you knew that the moment we gathered the evidence for it. This ‘choice’ you’re referring to was never a choice, no matter what poison Slade has been telling you for the last four months.”
Robin looked away again, flinching at the sound of Slade’s name. Raven balled her fists. “Robin, none of this was your fault.”
“You don’t know what I-”
“I mean it, Robin,” Raven interrupted him. “I don’t need to know any of the details. Any reasonable human being with half a brain would look at this situation and say none of that matters because this wasn’t your fault. You would say that if this happened to anyone else on the team.”
Robin’s jaw clenched; hands balled into fists tight. “It’s different…”
“It isn’t,” Raven argued. “Do you know why? It’s because we all love you. We all know you deserve better. So, you’re going to stop blaming yourself, go back home, eat Cyborg’s stew, play those stupid video games with Beast Boy, and listen to Starfire recite those 6 thousand lines of poetry again. Or you don’t have to do any of that, and none of us will think any less of you, and no one has to die or get tortured because of it, because that’s what a real choice is.”
Her voice echoed throughout the stairway with a confidence she never remembered having before. Robin didn’t have a response to her speech. He simply stared at the ground. Raven stood there silently, hoping those words sank into his stubborn head. She meant every single one of them.
After another minute of more tense silence, Robin finally looked up. “We shouldn’t keep Cyborg waiting.”
Raven let out a tense breath and gave Robin a small smile. “Ready to go, then?”
Robin nodded, returning the smile with a weak one of his own. They walked down the rest of the stairway until they reached the exit out into the parking lot. The sun shined down on them as they reached Cyborg blasting an OutKast song with his new car speakers and moving his shoulders side to side.
He looked over at them with a grin and turned down the music. “Beast Boy sent me pictures of the Tower. He and Starfire went all out for this party. It’s gonna blow your mind.”
Raven silently got in the backseat, while Robin moved into the passenger side. He gave Cyborg a grateful smile.
“Looking forward to it,” Robin replied.
It could’ve been a lie. Possibly a front… Something to just reassure Cyborg, Beast Boy and Starfire that their work was appreciated. Either way, Raven chose to believe him.