Robin and Finch

Sympathy

   There were very few evenings when the team all stayed the night in the cave, despite them all having rooms. They most often stayed after a particularly hard or tiring mission. That night was something different. They stayed because of their new teammates. Their opinions were divided. M'gann was happy to have someone (Finch) that would try all of her cooking and even help at times. She found Robin a bit prickly but he was kind to her, so she took it in stride. Aqualad liked the pair as well. There were many things he did not understand about them, but he could see their undieing loyalty to each other. If that loyalty could be made to include the team as their friends, Aqualad was sure the team would only become that much stronger. Superboy was conflicted; they were criminals, but then they weren't? And Finch seemed perfectly friendly, if not disconcertingly peppy, but Robin was so stand-offish. He wanted nothing to do with them, Robin made that much clear, but he was still here. Artemis was even more conflicted. She was disgruntled at having not been informed of this before coming to the cave, and then being hit in the head with a grate covering but then told everything was fine. Robin seemed to have a particular hatred towards her, based on his offhand comments and frequent glares. But then that drew the question; why did he take that shot for her? Robin had pushed her out of the way of Abra Kadabra's blast, getting hit himself. She wanted to remain adamant on her stance on them as villains, but then he had done that. It was all too confusing, and she didn't want to hear it. But then she immediately took that thought back as she heard something else. A scream echoed through the mountain as if some tortured ghost had made the mountain their haunt.

   Artemis bolted up in bed, suddenly ten times more aware. She had been half asleep, maybe that was it? But she was quickly dissuaded by another scream of pure terror. She jumped off her bed and opened her door to see Kaldur, Conner, and M'gann outside in the hallway as well, varying degrees of concern all displayed on their faces.

   "Hey! Let me out! I know what's happening, I need to be there for him!" Finch's muffled shouting from his room came to them. His room was inbetween Kaldur's and M'gann's. Finch had been given a room, one that he would be locked in during the night. Robin was still stuck overnight in the medbay. So that meant the screaming came from... Kaldur ran to Finch's door, imputed the combo, and opened the door. Finch sprinted out, shouting behind him, "I might need you to help hold him down if it's really bad! C'mon!" The team followed his sprinting in various stages of concern, confusion, and alarm. Finch seemed to know what was happening, but none of the others did. Finch dashed around the corner, going extremely fast even with his powers constricted. They went into the medbay to see something that horrified them. Finch was murmuring things as he held down a thrashing Robin, pinning Robin's arms above his head. "Aqualad, hold his legs down before he kicks me! We have to wait it out. He may not be very coherent when he wakes up, so leave questions till later. We just have to ride this out." Finch's last sentence was laced with sad acceptance, and Artemis could tell this had happened before. Kaldur quickly approached and did as asked to hold down the screaming raven haired boy. Superboy left the room, the screams most likely overpowering his super-hearing.

   Robin's latest scream ended in a strangled gasp and his masked eyes bolted open. His chest heaved in painful gasps, and Artemis could only wonder what had happened to the kid for a nightmare to go like that. "Hey. Robin. It's alright. I'm here. You're at Young Justice, calm down. Deep breaths." Finch let go of Robin's arms and Kaldur did the same with his legs, backing up to give the now sobbing boy his space.

   "They fell! They fell again, and again, and you were there! You fell, you left me alone! Don't leave me! Not again, please!" Robin's choked pleading cut off as he buried his face in his hands as his shoulders shook with sobs. Artemis wasn't sure what to think of his ramblings, but her heart ached with sympathy, her own plea for Jade to not leave her alone echoing in her ears. Kaldur looked concerned but respectful and M'gann looked like she herself was close to bursting into tears. Empath. Artemis reminded herself. Intense negative emotions were probably overwhelming. Finch lifted him self into the bed and took Robin into his arms, slowing rocking back and forth, murmuring reassurances that Artemis couldn't quite catch. Robin latched onto Finch like a lifeline and Artemis lowered her eyes, feeling like she'd walked into something deeply personal. Robin slowly, slowly quieted and eventually ended up with his head in Finch's lap, the older running his finger's through his dark hair. Finch looked up from the now quiet boy.