#it’s been particularly bad today Ive been trying to sleep for about six hours

[chryza]

Bruh I hate having disorders I just googled why I felt a certain way and google is like “well you see that’s a symptom of the disorder youve known you have for years. What you can do about it: fuck all

[wanderinginksplot]

Hiya, I was wondering if I could please request 3 (Echo) with B+O (Injury/sickness recovery + first kiss)? I don’t really mind who’s in recovery or whether it’s 501st echo/bad batch echo, I just thought these prompts would lead nicely into a confession between our two main characters; also I just want to say I love your writing!! ❤️

Aww, thank you so much for the request and for being so kind, Anon! Sorry this took forever, but I’ve been stuck in an idea block for a week or two, and I ended up writing about four different versions of this. You’re very sweet, but you probably shouldn’t be nice to me, because apparently, it makes me write one-shots that are way too long. So here’s a 2700 word one-shot...

Also! It ended up being a tad spicy toward the end. Nothing anywhere close to M-rating, but more than I usually write in one-shots.

Echo + Injury/Sickness Recovery + First Kiss

The first time you met Echo, you didn't like him very much.

You were in the medbay for a sickness that was taking Coruscant by storm, hitting nat-born GAR members especially hard. As a nat-born intelligence officer, you had been ordered to the GAR's main medbay, which had been sub-divided into large bays full of cots. Almost every cot was filled with GAR personnel who needed treatment for the same sickness.

It wouldn't have been bad if you had been able to take the meds right away and start the healing process, but you had been on a dangerous mission and fought the sickness off for longer than you should have. It had worked and you had survived your mission, but you were severely dehydrated. The medics - all clone troopers, by that point - had ordered you to stay until you were fully healed and they could get your fluid levels back where they should have been. Faced with no other options, you had agreed.

And then the 501st had arrived. 

Through your IV, you had gotten through half a bag of a liquid you preferred not to think too hard about. The medics promised that your meds would be kicking in soon, and you would feel much better before the day was over. For the moment, you felt nauseated and every part of your body ached, especially your head.

When the troopers came in, their white armor painted with blue accents in various styles, they were so loud that the rest of the medbay went quiet. 

One of the medics, his hair shaved short to show off a set of intricate tattoos, hurried up to them as he pulled off his gloves. You could hear his hissed question from your bed on the other side of the large room. "What are you idiots doing here?"

One of the men beamed at him. "We're in trouble!"

You scoffed to yourself. You had no difficulty believing they had gotten on someone's bad side. 

The tattooed medic rubbed his temples. "Hardcase… what did you guys do now?"

You had heard stories about the rowdy 501st from other operatives. They were supposed to be a nightmare to work alongside, all explosions and heroics without any grasp of subtlety. 

One of the other men stepped forward and seemed to be offering an explanation, but he did it in a voice pitched low enough that you couldn't hear him. You were grateful for that, and did your best to fall asleep.

It wasn't to be, however, as one of the 501st made his way down the row of beds in your direction. He chatted with some of the other patients, laughing loudly at their responses. By the time he reached you, you could have cheerfully put a blaster to the 5 tattooed on his temple.

"And how are you doing today?" the trooper belted out. 

"In a lot of pain, actually," you snapped at him, a visceral response to the effect his voice had on your roiling stomach. "Can you please talk more quietly?"

There. A please. You were being polite.

"If I'm quiet, does that mean I can stay over here with you, pretty lady?" he asked with a wink, settling onto the foot of your bed.

You eyed him stonily. You felt revolting from the effects of the sickness, and you were wearing a GAR-issued medical gown besides. ‘Pretty’ was an attempt at flattery, and not even a believable one.

"Fives," the medic with the head tattoos admonished, stepping up to your bedside as well. "Stop. She doesn't feel well and she doesn't need you hanging around, making it worse."

"Me?" Fives asked, sounding both shocked and offended. "We both know I only make things better, Kix."

You sighed and wished with your whole soul that they would both go away. You just wanted to sleep.

"Besides," Fives continued, "We were ordered to help in the medbay. You wouldn't want me to disobey orders, would you?"

From the look on Kix's face, he had lined up a scathing retort that you were dying to hear, but you needed to make a brief announcement. "If this conversation continues right here, I am going to vomit."

You had never seen two grown men move so quickly. You would have smiled if you didn't feel so rotten. 

"Echo," Kix called softly with a worried glance in your direction, beckoning yet another trooper over.

This one had no tattoos, but you vaguely recognized him as the only trooper you hadn't been able to overhear earlier.

"Get Fives away from here," Kix ordered. "Keep him productive and occupied, but don't let him talk."

Echo nodded and gave you an apologetic nod. "I'm sorry about him," he said, indicating Fives, who looked deeply offended.

"Please," was the only response you could muster, cradling your head delicately in your hands. From the bit of your peripheral vision that wasn’t blocked by your palms, you watched his shoulders slump slightly as he towed his brother away. When you finally fell asleep, your dreams were full of Echo’s disappointed face along with strong feelings of guilt.

The second time you met him was only a few hours later. You were having fever dreams. The medication had apparently worn off and no one had noticed. In your dreams, you had called a medic over a dozen times, but you always woke to find that you hadn’t said a thing, and fell asleep again before you could.

It was one of these shallow, fitful dreams that Echo interrupted. “Hey. Hey! Shhh, you’re having a nightmare. Wake up.”

Thoroughly confused by the world of the surrounding medbay, you squinted up at him. “Echo?” He nodded and you launched right into the speech you had prepared in your sleep. “I’m sorry I was rude earlier. I just… my head hurt, and you guys are loud, and-”

“You don’t have anything to apologize for,” Echo assured you, crouching by your bedside to put himself on your level. “The 501st - and Fives in particular - is very loud. It’s our best quality.”

You snorted at that and Echo’s kind face broke into a warm smile. “You should get back to sleep. It’s really late. Or early. I’m not sure which, but everyone else is asleep, and you should be, too.”

“I think I need some meds, actually,” you admitted. “I feel like death.”

Echo frowned and reached up to brush his fingers over your forehead, flinching back almost immediately. “Kriff, you’re burning up! Hang on, let me grab a medic for you.”

You nodded, but grabbed his wrist before he could leave, “If you bring me some water, I’ll love you forever.”

It was just a childish hyperbole, something you and your family had said whenever you had asked for a favor, particularly a minor one. Echo didn’t seem to have the same connection with it, based on the way he had frozen in place and was staring at you with wide eyes that flashed between your face and your grip on his wrist.

Clearing your throat, you released him and corrected yourself. “I mean, please? I’m very thirsty.”

Echo turned around a moment later and you sighed, hoping your hot face looked like the flush of a fever.

You were half-drowsing when Echo came back with Kix in tow. You jumped a bit when Kix said your name, and Echo was quick to soothe you. “Easy, easy. It’s just us.”

He handed you the biggest glass of water you had ever seen and retreated halfway across the medbay before you had chugged half of it.

The next day, you were actually feeling better. Granted, ‘better’ was a relative term, but you didn’t actively want to die any more, and that was something. The only thing messing up your day was the lingering awkwardness between you and Echo. Every time his circuit around the room took him past your cot, he would avoid your eyes. 

From your calculations, he looped around the gigantic medbay room every six minutes or so. On his next lap past, you softly asked, “Echo?”

You had meant to be subtle and quiet, but you were still a bit less hydrated than you should have been, and it came out as a horrifying croak. If someone had called your name in that voice, you would have immediately run away, but Echo just turned slightly and looked your direction.

“I’m sorry for last night,” you apologized.

“You already said that,” Echo reminded you gently. “The 501st is loud. I understand why you weren’t happy with us.”

“Not about that,” you forced out, half-wishing you could just let him think you had been delirious with fever and thus not responsible for anything you had said or done. “I mean that I’m sorry for saying the whole love you forever thing. It was a joke, but I feel like it landed poorly.”

“There’s no need, really,” Echo told you. He smiled then, a small sad smile. “We clones don’t get to see much good in the universe. Not with this war going on. Even though you were joking, it was nice to hear something like that.”

You stared at him, trying to keep the poker face the GAR had hired you for.

“Besides,” Echo said with a laugh, “if you want to see how a bad joke really sounds, hang out with Fives for a few minutes. You’ll have plenty of opportunity to see the difference!”

You chuckled at that and the smile he gave lit his whole face as he continued his patrol. You watched Echo leave, thinking hard. It was ironic that this was the conversation where your heart had melted just a touch. It wasn’t love, not yet, but this third exchange left feelings that were inappropriate considering that you had known him for less than a day.

That night, you couldn’t sleep, betrayed by all of the napping you had done during the day. Echo was patrolling the room again and noticed you on his fourth lap.

He crouched by your bedside once again. “Can’t sleep?”

“Nope,” you admitted with a sigh. “Can you?”

Echo frowned. “I can, but I’m on watch right now.”

“On watch,” you repeated skeptically. “For what?”

“Someone has to make sure the patients are doing okay while the medics sleep,” he explained. “It’s a very important job.”

“Your brothers are all playing sabacc in the corner,” you pointed out. “Go join them. Or, better yet, get some sleep. I haven’t seen you take a break yet.”

“You were unconscious for over half of the day,” Echo reminded you. “I could have been on break then.”

“You weren’t,” you told him confidently. “Because you wouldn’t have known that I slept the whole time.”

Echo frowned. “You’re too smart to work for the army.”

“Intelligence officer,” you explained simply. 

Lifting his eyebrows in exaggerated shock, Echo leapt to his feet and gave a dramatic salute. You pretended to aim a kick in his direction and you both dissolved into muffled giggles in an attempt not to wake any of the other patients.

“If you won’t try to sleep, at least sit down?” you requested, indicating the foot of your cot as you struggled to sit up so you could move out of his way. “You’re stressing me out. I can’t be expected to get better if I’m stressed.”

“We can’t have that,” Echo teased. He helped you sit up before he did anything else, but the awkwardness of the position left him hauling you up by your armpits. You were thankful that you had found the strength to walk to the sonic shower that day, at least. “Not like I can get sick from you, anyway.”

Echo sat talking with you for hours, even after his brothers had all drifted off at their sabacc table. Before you fell asleep again, he brought you another giant glass of water. You accepted it with a smile. “Thank you, I really appreciate it.”

He nodded and left so you could get some sleep. By the time you had finished the glass, he was on the other side of the medbay and couldn’t hear you mutter, “Love you forever.”

For the next few days, Echo lived by your bedside. The conversations you had made you laugh so hard that you went into the occasional coughing fit and got the evil eye from Kix. So, you were less pleased than you had expected to be when Kix told you that you could be discharged the following day.

That night, you couldn’t sleep. Getting your sleep pattern back under control was going to be the biggest struggle, you reflected, staring at the massive beams supporting the ceiling.

“Excuse me, ma’am,” Echo teased, walking up. “Shouldn’t you be asleep?”

You waved a hand around dramatically. “I’m trying to commit these beautiful surroundings to memory. If I’m leaving tomorrow, I’ll need to remember the enchanting way the dust clings to that wall over there.”

Suddenly serious, Echo asked, “You’re leaving tomorrow?”

You nodded, and couldn’t tell if it was your imagination, or if he really looked disappointed. Still, he mustered a smile. “I’m glad.”

With a falsely offended gasp, you replied, “You’re glad I’m leaving? That’s rude!”

“No, I mean-!” Echo sputtered, grimacing at you when you started to laugh. “I’m glad you’re getting better. Even if you’re just as mean as the day I met you.”

“Yeah, I’m terrible,” you agreed with a grin. 

“You are not,” he countered immediately. “You’re sweet and funny and- I’ll miss you. Selfish, huh?”

“I’ll miss you, too,” you admitted. “I guess we’re both selfish. But, hey, you’ll finally get some sleep now!”

“I suppose I will,” Echo said with the ghost of his usual smile. “At least we can have one last overnight conversation. Unless you’re too tired?”

You rolled your eyes at him. “Sit down, Echo.”

The two of you talked for hours that night. The medbay steadily got more silent and your eyes began to ache. Try as you might, you were still recovering from your illness and the point came when you couldn’t fight it off any longer. You fell into a light doze as Echo was talking.

You were dimly aware as he finished his sentence and waited for a response, but you couldn’t make yourself say anything. Echo gave an amused sounding hum and stood from your cot. You immediately missed his warmth, but felt like he was still standing by you.

Soft lips pressed against your forehead and left as Echo started to move away. “What was that cop-out bantha dung?” you asked blearily. 

Echo jumped a bit and stared down at you, but you were half-asleep, impulsive, and you knew what you wanted. You sat up to grab his shoulders and brought him back down to you, kissing him with as much fervor as an extremely tired person could muster.

He kissed you back, opening his mouth to release an almost-soundless groan, and you were suddenly wide awake. With both of you actively participating in your embrace, it didn’t take long for the pair of you to get carried away. 

When you finally broke apart, it was only because someone had cleared their throat sharply. 

Echo pulled back, bracing on his forearms to look up at Kix while you peered at the medic from under Echo’s chest. When had he gotten on top of you? His hip brushed against your upper thigh and you abruptly didn’t care anymore.

“I take it you’re well enough to be released from here?” Kix asked, a raised brow accentuating his smirk. 

You glanced around to find that half of the medbay was awake and staring at you and Echo with expressions ranging from bleary bewilderment to amused approval. Some of Echo’s brothers were awake as well, though their faces ran heavily to outright shock.

“Uh, yeah. I’m ready to go home,” you agreed, glancing up at Echo. “Wanna come with me?”

Echo nodded and glanced up at Kix. The medic shrugged and looked at the ceiling. “No, I have no idea where Echo went. He worked several around the chrono shifts and then he disappeared. I assume he went to get some well-deserved rest. Sign here.”

The last part was directed at you and you obligingly scrawled your name on the datapad he was holding out in your direction. 

“Your personal effects are in the front room,” Kix informed you. “Drink some water now and then, would you?”

“Of course, thanks,” you said absently, attention already stolen away by the fascinating blush creeping up Echo’s cheeks. You slipped out from under him and grabbed his hand to tow him behind you. “C’mon. You’re gonna love my apartment.”

---

A/N - ahh, why did this end up being such a novel? Sorry about that! If you want to read similar works, check out my masterlist or make a request based on this post (or make something up and I’ll do my best!). Thanks for reading!

[blxckbyrd-blog]

“please don’t leave me alone.”

five word prompts | selectively accepting

Five times Raven wouldn’t leave Robin alone, and the one time she did.

i.It was rare to not hear a single sound from the tower during the daytime. At night, sure; that was Raven’s time to relax, but daytime was usually cluttered with noise, interrupting presences, and energy she couldn’t hide from. But today, there was nothing. She knew where her team was, but Raven couldn’t push away the feeling of wrongness that followed her around. Cyborg and Starfire had made a conspicuously large deal out of heading to the food fair happening downtown, and Beast Boy was sleeping off the effects of the nanobots that had infected the Titans’ bodies. By all accounts, something that Raven should be doing as well, but even as she meditated in her room, she could feel Robin’s pacing a floor away.

Swallowing thickly, she rose from her room and drifted to the kitchen, relieved at the noise the china cups made against the counter, and watched the steam rise towards the ceiling from the boiling kettle. She rolled a sore shoulder back to work out the kinks until the water was ready. Pouring hot water into each, she grabbed for a box of tea on the top shelf, drawing it down surrounded by black magic. It was a special brew she’d ordered when first coming to the tower, sweet with chamomile followed by a smooth mint. It was only tea, but magic was everywhere if you could pluck it out of thin air, and Raven hadn’t found anything more calming or reassuring of this plane or others.She lost her courage just outside of the filing room, though the door looked almost comically flimsy; just a sliding piece of metal that revealed an opportunity where none had been before. Know someone too well and it’s a weapon, not a kindness. She glided forward and allowed the door to open, revealing her figure in the doorframe with two cups of tea in hand.Robin’s hair was damp at the ends, and his gloves were lying on top of an unused display case. A nearby case held the silver gloves she’d seen on his hands less than 24 hours ago, and she wondered if the memory of how they felt would be hard to shake.“Is that for me?” Robin asked, and Raven nodded, holding out a cup. His gaze was fixed on the teacup instead of her gaze, and when he got close enough to take it, Raven smelled a trace of soap, wondering how long he’d had to shower until he found some peace.“Thanks.” Robin moved back to the desk, holding his cup though making no move to drink it. He busied himself by picking up a sharp piece of metal, jagged and S-shaped, made of sharp edges. It was the first time she’d seen him since they’d returned, and the empath was beginning to wonder if the seclusion had been deliberate.“You don’t need to punish yourself,” Raven said, shocking herself a little with how soft her voice had come out. Robin froze over the desk, gripping the emblem tightly as he turned to her, brows furrowed.“You were trying to save us. That’s what you should remember right now.”He didn’t reply, but she swore she saw his shoulders relax slightly, his brows raise a minute amount, and the smallest note of gratitude reached her.—ii.They had been complete as five. When Terra had burst into their lives, Raven had worried that there would be no room for her, or worse, that she would take the place of another Titan, one who had always been apart, distant, and ultimately easy to replace. But when six shrank to five again, Raven even found herself missing Terra. She left holes in a spotless bathroom, a mid-morning silence where she had found snores that she was convinced could rattle the walls, a smile in a boy who’d never been slow to smile before.When she caught Robin alone, he’d been staring at Terra’s door a few days after she’d followed Slade from the carnival, packing box in hand but hesitant to enter.”If you’re going to tell me ‘I told you so,’ I know.””I wasn’t.” She almost felt bad about missing Terra. Beast Boy was by far the one most affected by her betrayal, and the team needed her to be angry, needed her to be the place they filed their emotions when they were too difficult to bear. But Raven had no anger to offer.Terra’s nameplate was a stamp on Robin’s file, a note he believed made him unfit to be a leader, a misstep that had cost his team dearly. For Raven, Terra’s friendship had been a lapse in judgement, a reminder why letting people in too close was exposing her neck to a blade. But you can do everything right and still lose; the benefits of the doubt should have been more rewarding than being right.They stood outside Terra’s room for what felt like an hour. Finally, Robin stepped inside and packed away anything that had been hers.—iii.There was a knocking at her door long after there should have been silence. Raven’s bed had offered her no relief after the day’s events, even though exhaustion had settled in close by, so the distraction wasn’t entirely unwelcome. Not bothering to grab her cloak on the way by, Raven opened the door to find Robin, mid-knock outside her door.“You’re up late.”“I need a favour.”Summoning her cloak to her, Raven followed Robin down the hallway, winding the hallways in silence until they arrived at the infirmary once more. They’d spent too much of the day there, but judging by the lights, Robin hadn’t left after the rest of his team had.“Robin, we ran every test we could think of. Your system’s clean.”

“I know. I need you to run them again.”Rather than argue with him, Raven took the needle he’d offered her and tied off his upper arm with a band he’d prepared nearby. “This will sting, I’m sorry.”“Just do it.”She drew his blood as quickly as she could, working to ignore the grimace in his expression and the number of marks that already marked his veins. She set the blood to test while offering Robin a canister to breathe into. The results from the last test were still on the screen, negative of course, but that gave Robin no assurance.Robin broke his silence when her back was turned, having taken the canister from him and set it inside the analyzer, a process that was familiar to her by now.“I still see him. I don’t think he’s gone.”Folding her arms across her chest, Raven raised her eyebrows, concern rising up her back.“Does he say anything?”“No.”“Does he try to hurt you?”“No, I just see him in the corner of my eye.”Letting out a sigh, Raven pressed her lips together to mull over her choice of words.“After something like this, it’s not uncommon of for the brain to look for patterns it’s gotten used to. You might keep seeing him for a bit, but he’s gone. He can’t hurt you again.”She stepped toward him, ignoring the beeping of the machines behind her.“I promise.”—iv.She cleaned without any use of her powers. Any trace of him shouldn’t be spirited away but scrubbed out. She wanted to feel tired, feel the exhaustion of the physical labour it took to vacuum the carpet, lift every book one by one back into its original place on her bookshelf, ensure every magical ingredient was carefully tucked away where it belonged.When it came time to hang her white cloak in her closet, a tightness in her throat made the gesture all the more difficult. The book holding him had been locked away in a chest that sat far from the door, well secured behind not one but two different locks, but she didn’t feel any more at peace.The hole in the ceiling was too conspicuous to ignore, but she left it alone. Let the evidence show how wrong she’d been. How stupid she’d been. How naive, how willing, how wanted she’d been, she’d felt—She woke up one morning to the sound of construction on her roof. After a few moments of bleary, barely-awake blinking, she could see the billowing edges of a yellow cape from the lip of the hole apart from the construction.Grabbing her cloak, she joined Robin on the roof, letting the cool wind of the morning wake her up. “It was only a matter of time before it started to rain.” Robin explained, turning towards her. Raven offered him a shrug in response — it had been some time since she’d seen any of her teammates, as it had been a quiet past few days. She hadn’t asked for an excuse.Her silence was obvious as the pair looked over the city, the noise of the construction behind them not enough to make it any easier. But it was Robin’s glance towards his boots that betrayed his thoughts before he spoke.“We’ve missed you these past few days.”She had no response to offer him, just a surprised glance towards him. Robin’s mask wasn’t enough to cover his uncertainty; neither of them were particularly well-equipped to deal with the situation ahead of them. There was no step-by-step guide for ‘How to deal with your friend’s love crush turning into a dragon and betraying them.’“And… I’m sorry he did that to you. You deserve better.”She couldn’t meet his eyes after that, but felt the first stirring of a smile in days.—x.She remembered a noise in the hallway, a sniffling along the ground coming closer. Careless — no. Uncaring. Magic in her hand, she stepped out of her room, wishing in vain for more light. Then, she saw the figure — taller than she’d remembered, angry, and bearing its teeth in a delighted grin. When it lunged, she screamed, and the world went black too.They’d recovered her in the sewers, with the bottom of her cloak stained with god-knows-what. For a horrible moment, she looked dead; limp and unmoving in the beast’s jaws, even peaceful. He froze, ice in his veins as he searched for any blood, a rising chest, anything to reveal that Raven was still alive. She let out a groan as she hit the floor that birthed a relief Robin couldn’t ever try to vocalize, but now, back in the tower, with her levitating form prone on the bed, that relief seemed far away.He didn’t leave her side. Even if the monitors she was hooked up to would’ve revealed any change in her condition with an alarm he could hear throughout the tower, he wanted to be there, watch if her breath faltered, she fell limp again. As if his vigil would do any good. This was his team, his responsibility. And if she didn’t wake up…Best he could tell, she was healing herself from the inside out, even though the telltale sparkling blue magic was nowhere to be found. Had she always looked that pale? Certainly not that vulnerable. Try as he might to busy himself with charts and vitals, her silence was too conspicuous to escape his notice.He needed something to do. Something to change. If there was a mountain he could move, point it out and he’d throw everything he had at it. Sitting and waiting, helpless, wasn’t something Robin ever dealt with well.“Come on, Raven. Come back to us.”If he hadn’t been watching her for the past hour, he wouldn’t have caught it. But her body rose slightly higher than it had in previous times, closer to where he stood over her, and Robin could remember what relief felt like.—xi.Every moment he didn’t spend working on a case, he put into the panic room. He’d consulted with Cyborg on the security measures to break into the room if, god forbid, they were unable to stop Slade from advancing. Two Titan hands on the panel, biometric scan; a fail would set an instant alarm triggering numerous booby traps designed to take out the enemy. Beast Boy had stolen the book from Raven’s room on the rare occasions she left it, and Robin had pored over it with Starfire for the relevant protective sigils. And he didn’t mind the paint on his clothes.The observation deck felt too clinical, but they couldn’t run the risk. If Trigon tried to access her psychically, Robin wanted to be sure Raven could strike back without fear of harming her teammates, but if he’d had his choice, Robin would wait this out beside her. He settled for the frontline.She’d looked so scared in the days leading up to her birthday, Robin remembered. Any peace Raven should’ve been able to find within herself had long since abandoned her. He’d catch her sleeping in random places — in the gym, on the couch, even on the roof once, catching a few moments of sleep where she could. But he could tell when the dreams began every time, and shook her awake before she could finish her plea. ‘No, please—’ The noise may have faded, but it lasted in Robin’s ears.~In all their preparations, they had never imagined that Raven would let herself out of the safe room. A stupid, stupid, stupid oversight — Raven had succumbed to her emotions before and had let Trigon loose; he should’ve known that now, when her defences were low and Trigon growing stronger, he would try to control her.At least, that’s what Robin had believed when he saw that Raven had left the safety of the tower. Chest heaving, with every bone in his body aching with exhaustion, he could still feel the rush to his temples as her blue cloak came into sight. But the sadness in her eyes was all Raven’s.The energy she’d released was like nothing he’d ever felt before. It was the closest he’d ever come to being struck by lightning, feeling so alive and in pain at once that his body couldn’t hold onto it all. Fighting — and losing — for consciousness, the last thing he could hear was something Trigon would never wish upon them; to be safe.~This would not be how it ended. How the story of Jump City, the Teen Titans, of Raven ended. He wouldn’t let it.~When he grabbed her hand, it was shaking. Friendship hadn’t been enough.How many times had the team been shielded by Raven’s barrier before? To keep them safe, away from harm, but now it was Raven walking into the fire. His fists were useless and he had nothing left — no gadgets, no magic ace up his sleeve, nothing left to say or do, but just watch.Any connection, any bond they had was tearing at him with every step she took. The sigils began to burn violent ridges into her skin, and though he held Starfire, he felt numb, outside of his own body — he’d rather be anywhere than her helpless witness to her own destruction.‘Please don’t leave me alone.’Her face collapses into a grimace, and he can see the lights dancing around her reflected in tears budding at the corner of her eyes. But when they open again, they’re white — pure white, nothing-left-but-the-pain white, death white.He owed it to her to watch every second until there was nothing left.