browngirl

This is the kind of story you write when you have an idea that won't leave you alone and you don't want to give it 5000 words of wrongness. And by you I mean me.

Title: A Recurrent Itch
Fandom: DC Comics-based Cartoons
Pairings: Slade/Robin, Slade/Terra
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Robin's wrists itch.
Based on/Spoilers For: "The End"
Disclaimer: So not mine.

Walking down a path of red rock beside a lake of lava, keeping an eye out for demon soldiers and falling stones, Robin catches himself scratching beneath one gauntlet. Frowning, he makes himself stop, folding his hands into fists; if he scratches he'll only damage himself, and he needs to be at his best for this mission, no matter how much his wrists itch.

Even though they've itched ever since he saw Slade in the rain, and his teammates didn't; when they strapped him down for his own good, the stinging spread till he wanted to claw his skin off.

The itching first started when Slade blackmailed Robin into being his apprentice, forced him to take off his uniform, then made him pay for the new one. Slade squeezed Robin's wrists as he pushed him to his knees, and kept squeezing; the floor was cold and rough, and Slade's bare hand was even harder than his gauntlet.

They itched when Terra lost her glove once during a fight, and Robin spotted a cuff of broad finger-bruises around her wrist. She glanced around nervously, hiding it with her other hand, and Robin looked away before she could see that he'd seen.

When Slade called them "old friends" indignation crackled all over Robin's skin, and his wrists burned with irritation in Slade's bone-hard grip. But the spin-kick worked, clearing the demon army from their path, and Robin's here to save Raven, not to worry about irrelevant things.

So Robin keeps walking, absently rubbing his wrists.