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Tim dreams.
The kitchen floor is covered with shards of glass. He's picking them up and piecing them together one by one, but he can't fit them back together. There are too many pieces, and not all of them fit.
"Your hands are bleeding," Raven says.
"Don't help," he says. "I have to do this by myself."
"You are dreaming," she points out. Glass crunches under her feet.
"I know that," Tim says, his voice dripping scorn. "That's perfectly obvious."
Raven rests a hand on his shoulder. The glove she sees is heavier than hers, and bigger. It's not her hand he feels.
She can hear someone knocking, and then a nervous rattle of the lock. Someone begins pounding at the door.
"Get out," Tim says. "Go now."
"If that is what you really want," Raven says.
Tim looks up at her. His eyes are dark and blank, like the lenses of his mask. "Don't open the door."
"Not everyone needs a door," Raven says. She wreathes herself in shadow as Tim turns back to his work, and then she is gone.
*****
Cassie dreams.
She is glorious. From beneath her heavy helmet her hair streams down her back and flutters in the wind. The sun gleams off her breastplate and shield. They come to her one by one, and raise their sword to her, and she smiles radiantly and cuts them down.
"This is not what war is," Raven says.
Cassie shrugs. The armor turns to brown uniforms, the sun to murky cloud. Soldiers lie dying in the mud. In the distance, thunder cracks.
"It's all the same," she says. "We're all going to fight until we die. That's what we do."
"Is that the only lesson you learned from Donna?"
"I've learned a lot of things," Cassie says. She stretches out her hands, and the thunder cracks again. "You know what the difference between being a hero and just being a good soldier is?"
Raven shakes her head.
"Heroes never really die," Cassie says.
The wind whips across the battlefield. It's growing bitter cold. Raven wraps herself up in the shadowy folds of her cloak and moves on. Someone's dreams must be warmer than this.
*****
Kon dreams. The Hawaiian sun is hot, and it beats down on him as he lies on the beach, perfectly content. Maybe in a while he'll get up and go get some ice cream, or save somebody from drowning, or go try to pick up girls.
"Raven," Kon says, without opening his eyes. "Listen, I like it here, and whatever the problem is, it's somebody else's problem, so either get lost or get yourself a beach towel and get with the program."
Raven lies down naked on a black beach towel and lets the imaginary sun beat down on her. It's almost as good as ever having done it in real life.
"I like it here, too," she says.
"You've got to have something that's yours," Kon says. He sits up and opens his eyes, staring out at the water. "Maybe they made me, but they didn't make this."
Raven sits up, too, and hugs her knees. The wind scours her bare legs with sand. "But they can always take it away."
"Yeah," Kon says. His face darkens. The water darkens as the sun slips behind a cloud.
"I am not helping," Raven says.
"Not much, no."
"I am sorry," Raven says. She stands up, letting her cloak drape itself around her in familiar black folds.
"It's cool," Kon says. "Want to get some ice cream?"
"Not today."
"Next time, then."
He won't remember, next time. Or at least she hopes not. Two quick steps away from him down the beach, and she's gone.
*****
Bart dreams.
Flashing colors and neon lights and his father's voice and pizza with anchovies and algebra and Tim and Kon and searing pain tearing through his knee and Cassie and Max and Christmas presents and the schematics for a gun. Grief and joy and anger flicker and flash.
Raven can't keep up. It's tempting to try to drag him down to her speed so she can talk to him, miring him in the speed of her thoughts like he's moving through thick honey. He amuses her. He even seems to like her.
She thinks she likes him, too, too much to tamper with his mind just because she wants to talk.
Raven moves on.
*****
Gar dreams.
He's in the old Tower, the one that's been a memory for years. He's trying to make a sandwich, but every time he opens the refrigerator, there's new and yucky stuff in there. Anyway, the plates keep disappearing as soon as he puts them down.
"There were forks in here," he mutters, jerking a cabinet door open. "I saw them. Hi, Raven. Weren't there forks in here?"
"Hello, Garfield," Raven says. "You are dealing with a subconscious fear of cutlery?"
"Actually, I think this is just a frustration dream," Gar says. "You know, like when you dream you haven't done your homework, even when you really have."
"I rarely dream."
"You should try it more often," Gar says. "It's kind of neat. Except for dreams like this, which suck."
Raven reaches into a cabinet and lifts down a plate. She sets it in front of Gar piled high with pancakes.
"Thanks, Mom."
"I am not your mother."
"Yeah, I know," Gar says, looking years older. "And this place was turned into a pile of rubble. And if I want pancakes, I'm going to have to make them myself in the morning. You got any other bad news you want to pass along?"
"Would you like me to cook you pancakes?" Raven asks tentatively.
Gar looks exasperated. "You? You'd burn water."
"It is not actually possible to --"
"Enough, already," Gar says, jabbing his fork at her in a friendly but emphatic way. "Leave me alone with my anxieties, okay? I'm used to them. I don't need you to fix me."
"All right," Raven says. She turns and walks out the door that she also knows doesn't really exist anymore.
*****
Vic dreams.
He's back home, sitting by the window looking out on a rainy day. Too wet to go running or shoot some hoops. Too wet to do much of anything but sit around and watch TV or maybe read a book. The water traces meaningless patterns against the glass.
"Raven," he says, sounding unsurprised.
"Is this where you grew up?"
"Yeah," he says. "Actually we lived a couple of different places, but this is the one I remember best." He turns around to look at her. Metal gleams on his face. "What's the matter? Can't sleep?"
"Everyone hurts too much," Raven says. She suspects she's learned how to whine. Vic just nods, though.
"It's tough," he says. "Even old aches can still keep you awake at night. Not to mention the new ones."
"What do normal people do when they cannot sleep?"
Vic shrugs. "Does it matter? We're not."
"I should go," Raven says. She isn't sure she likes the turn this conversation is taking.
"You could wake me up," Vic says. "That's what Gar would do."
"That is not what Kory would do."
"Yeah, but we can't all be tough-ass warrior princesses."
"I will consider it," Raven says.
Vic shrugs. He looks almost hurt. "Sure, whatever. I guess I won't remember this in the morning."
"Sleep well, Victor," Raven says. She steps backwards into the dark.
*****
Kory dreams.
She's talking to Donna, sitting at the kitchen table in her old apartment. The curtains are open, and there's sun pouring in. Donna has her feet up on a chair.
"Dick gets that way," Donna is saying. "You just have to give him room to work it out."
"But what if he can't?" Kory asks.
Donna shrugs. "He always does."
"Hi, Raven," Kory says. "We were just talking about Dick. I'm worried about him."
"Donna is dead."
"I know that," Kory says. "I still like to talk to her. It helps me work things out."
"I try, you know?" Donna says. "But I'm really not a Robin authority. You might do better to ask another Robin."
"You mean Tim?" Kory frowns. "He never talks to me."
"He sees you as a parent," Raven says, unable to resist being drawn into this macabre conversation. "And his feelings about parents are terribly mixed. He is not sure who you will want him to be."
"I'd be happy to be his friend," Kory says. "And I just want him to be himself."
"That is not as easy for everyone as it is for you."
"I know it's not," Donna says sympathetically. She reaches up for Raven's hand. "It's hard trying to figure out who you are, and who you want to be."
"But you are not real," Raven says in frustration, pulling her hand away.
"I'm not alive. It's not the same thing."
"Stay and talk," Kory says. "I'll make coffee."
"I think not," Raven says, but she bends and kisses Donna on the forehead. Her skin is cool and tastes of ashes. Raven turns and walks away, leaving them chatting over a plate of coffee cake.
*****
Raven dreams.
She's walking through a field of blood-red flowers. The poppies are from one of Joseph's paintings that she particularly liked, years ago when she was someone else. People expect her to be creative because she is secretive, and one of her secrets is that she's not. She plays the role she's been raised to and dreams secondhand dreams.
The ground on the hillside above her is torn, as if someone flying high and fast had hit the ground there. Smoke rises slowly like dust against the sky. Above her a raven cries harshly, with a sound like breaking metal or shattering glass.
This is supposed to be good for her, to tell her something important, but she doesn't see how it does. Everyone dies, everything breaks -- she knows these things. She doesn't need her dreams to tell her the truth about her world. She'd rather have dreams that lie.
Someone is knocking at the door. Raven takes a deep breath and turns, bracing herself to stare someone else's nightmare in the eye.
Instead she tosses and turns and wakes up, scrambling up in bed as the knocking -- really very faint, as if someone's not sure this is a good idea -- continues.
She gets up, and crosses to the door of her room, and opens it. Robin is standing in the hallway. His costume is perfectly pressed, but his hair is astray. His face is pale under the curves of his mask.
"Gar says you promised to make him pancakes," he says. "And since I can't imagine you know how, I thought I'd come save you from yourself by teaching you."
Raven raises an eyebrow. "You know how to make pancakes?"
"It's a special Robin skill," he says. "We have our secrets."
She wonders if that means it's all right between them. Probably not. "I'm sorry," she says. "For intruding."
"Good," he says. He turns toward the kitchen. "Are you coming?"
"I'm coming." It's not quite dawn. Gray light bleeds in through the high windows as they round the corner toward the kitchen.
Certain things are now predictable. Kory will sleep late and come down cheerfully demanding coffee. Vic will wake at the exact time he does every morning and come downstairs to stand in the doorway and tease Gar about how many pancakes he's eating. Bart will blur into the room and bounce up and down and generally make himself the center of attention. Kon and Cassie will slouch around the edges of the room and eventually disappear off with their plates to somewhere where they can pretend they're not being watched. There's really only one thing Raven doesn't know.
"Why are you doing this?" she asks.
Robin shrugs. "Everyone wants things to be normal."
It occurs to Raven that she's not the only one who wants to fix people. It also occurs to her that she's looking at the only other person in the Tower who can be as manipulative as her, and from the same good intentions.
"But they're not," she says.
Robin smiles sideways. "You think people want to know the truth?"
"I do," Raven says. At least she thinks she does.
"I'll take that under consideration."
It seems a good enough start to the morning. Outside the windows, the sun is rising.