Since their last mission, he'd distanced himself from the team and took some time to think about what he did. In the end, he just felt embarrassed for how he'd acted. It wasn't their fault he didn't tell them about the injury nor for assuming he had things handled. He shouldn't have blown up as he did. 

"I'm sorry, I was unprofessional whilst we had our first mission away and I ruined things," Robin announced.

"Hey, it's okay dude," Wally replied.

"It wasn't. I should know better than to blindly go after my teammates because you didn't react how I thought you would when you found me. What happened was nothing to do with you and all to do with me."

"Does that mean we get to know who you are now?" M'gann asked excitedly. He shook his head, feeling some guilt pool at the bottom of his stomach for even giving them that hope. Even if they had reacted in a way he preferred, he would've found a way to chicken out of telling them. Batman's approval still meant the world to him.

"No, I can't. Batman will have my head if I so much as tell you my eye colour. He already chewed me out when I mentioned we were heading towards my school on one mission," he explained.

"You said that?" Artemis questioned, her friends giving similarly confused looks. 

"It was an off-handed comment don't worry about it. Point is, I'm going to do a better job at handling myself and not offering things I can't make good on."

"It's all good man," Wally insisted. "We kinda guessed you were worked up more from the injury than anything else." He didn't know why that made him feel so small but it did. He was supposed to be better than that. To not let anything get in the way of a mission no matter what it was. He'd been so good at extending that to his friendships that now he'd made this mistake he couldn't shift that crawling beneath his skin scolding him for what he did. The acceptance of his apology was useless and he knew Wally was doing it to make him feel better so he just put on a smile to fake that it worked. 

"Yeah, it won't happen again guys. I've uh I've actually got a session with BC today so I could hang out after that if you're okay with me being here?"

"Of course we are. It was a one-off. Every friendship group fights," Artemis assured him.

"And they make up too. You've already said you're sorry," M'gann added.

"I mean it too. I promise," he said, sounding more desperate than he had meant to. They'd caught it too which made him feel rather pathetic. Like a child begging for forgiveness after being punished. 

"We know," Kaldur replied. "When's your session with Black Canary?"

"In a few minutes. I better go." They nodded and carried on with whatever activities he interrupted. Robin stared at them for a few moments before turning and heading to the therapy room. It had been a permanent feature after failsafe and, although he could definitely figure out ways to get out of it and had in the past, today he actually wanted to go. He needed help so it didn't happen again.

Black Canary gave him a smile as he entered the room and found his seat in front of her. He always thought it was a little awkward how the chairs were facing one another and forcing them to make eye contact at times but he didn't say anything about it. 

"Hey, how're you feeling?" she asked. She asked if every session and every time he'd told her he was fine. Sometimes he'd say he was a little tired to spice it up but he was always fine. Today he decided he wasn't. That he needed to get into the meat and bones of the situation without their usual little dance. 

"I feel bad," he answered. The admission set off that pressure resting on his shoulders, intensifying it as punishment for being truthful. He wasn't supposed to be. He was Robin and Robin had to be fine but he supposed he wasn't in the suit now so why feel that responsibility to be cool and collected for the betterment of a mission? "Something happened on the last mission I went on with the team."

"Oh? You only mentioned the bullet wound. Is it not healing properly?" He shook his head after a moment of considering going with that possible out. No, he was determined to get to the bottom of this. 

"No. I uhm I was fixing myself up in the bathroom and the team eventually found me. They got worried that this would jeopardize their opportunity to do that sorta thing again and I got annoyed. So, the next day, I lashed out at them. I basically implied," She gave him a look and he sighed, "fine I said I was better than them because I'd been in the game longer," he explained, cringing at the memory. "They said they didn't think about me because I'm Robin and I just- I don't know I told them that I would've told them my identity if they hadn't."

"Would you have told them?" He shook his head. "Are you still mad they worried more for the mission than they did for you?"

"I'm more embarrassed than anything, I'm supposed to be more in check of my emotions. It's just the Robin thing that's bothering me."

"The Robin thing?" she questioned. "Do you take issue with them perceiving you as independent let's say? That's the only way I can think of why they'd worry more for the mission." 

"I think so."

"Why aren't you sure?"

"I don't know."

"What part are you stuck on?" He didn't know why he was getting frustrated by that line of questioning. It was completely fair and he had asked the same question to himself yet he felt like he was a can of Coke getting shaken up and about to explode. "You've always taken pride in your maturity as Robin. Why now are you unsatisfied with how that makes people perceive you?"

"Because I'm still a kid!" Robin finally exploded. He put a hand over his mouth since he'd never meant to shout his answer and he knew for a fact that Connor would've heard it. He looked at Black Canary warily, taking in her shock that slowly morphed into that same understanding smile she always wore when they spoke.

"Tell me about that."

"I'm still a kid but being Robin makes people forget that's what I'm supposed to be first," he continued. "My teammates aren't the only people who don't do something because they see Robin. No adults, aside from Agent A or you very recently, are helping me with the-the kid stuff because they just assume I have it handled. I've got Robin handled so why bother with something so seemingly easy, right?" He shook his head.  "How can I go from this bubbly little kid to this adult stuck in a kid's body without anyone thinking it's weird? How can I sit in a bathtub with blood pouring out my shoulder and not have people worry about that first?"

"We always thought it was weird," she replied carefully. She didn't want to make it sound like a defence.

"Then why did nobody help? Why did I have to-to figure out that I don't know how to be a kid and then just be left to deal with that on my own?" He sighed and sat back in his chair. "It's so weird. I got mad at my friends for treating me how I'd always wanted to be treated when I got older. Nine-year-old me would be bouncing off the walls at them brushing off me and patching myself up in the bathroom. I probably would've thought it was super badass," he explained with a mirthful smile. He fell silent and slumped down whilst playing with the strings of his hoodie, not knowing where else to go with that thought.

"Keep going. What do you want currently? Don't think about what you've wanted in the past or what you think Robin should want. What do you want?" Black Canary encouraged. She had a pensive look on her face like she was just about to witness a breakthrough. He didn't think there would be.

"I don't want to be seen as a kid all the time. I wanna be respected and I want people to depend on me as they depend on Bats but I want people to know I'm still a kid. I don't want to be treated like one but I want people to know I am one. I did my own first-aid because I didn't know what else to do. Patching myself up is second nature and none of the team has anything other than basic medical skills so it was my only option," he explained. It shouldn't be normal for him, he knew that. Even other heroes weren't patching themselves up alone regularly. "When I was found, I thought I'd- I don't know I thought I'd get babied. I don't know why I wanted that because I know for a fact I would've been frustrated had they done it." 

He felt sick, he never let himself delve this far into that part of his mind yet here he was because he couldn't contain it anymore. He wasn't supposed to tell people or show people any weakness for fear of it being exploited but it hurt to do that. It was like something constantly crawling to get out and sometimes things would slip out but he could never let it free. He was on a roll now though. 

"People just expect me to be completely fine with everything, I'd never even been to therapy before the failsafe incident. I guess it's because I do act like I'm fine and that's what I'm trained to do even if I don't pull it off perfectly. They thought my outburst was from me being hurt not because I was actually lashing out because I couldn't take much more. So I get why they expected me to be fine and worried more about the consequences for themselves but I didn't want them to."

"They didn't know what you wanted them to do," she reminded him as though to say things would be different had they known. That felt even more frustrating than her previous line of questioning because what was he supposed to do with that? Well done, because you didn't say anything you didn't get anything. Good job you could have avoided feeling awful about hurting your friends and yourself in the process had you just said something. Simply saying something wasn't as easy as people acted. It was hard to admit to what he wanted and he knew he couldn't expect them to know so he didn't need to be reminded.

"I'm not allowed to tell them! Everything I say has to be put through this filter and it's exhausting. I'm barely fourteen and I'm having to be the adult so often that I've lost the ability to be a kid," he ranted. "The worst part is for five seconds after this session I'll feel better. Like finally I got a weight off my chest and I can go out there, say something and have my friends understand me. For five fucking seconds I'll feel seen." He huffed, suddenly losing all that fight he'd once had. "Then I'll feel guilty for saying anything and get scared about how this will somehow come to bite me in the future. Maybe during a fight, they'll say I'm just a kid and I'll be back to square one. Maybe they'll baby me to death when I get so much as a scratch so I'll never ask for help again. Maybe they won't look to me for advice and my years of experience are nothing more than time."

"Robin, nobody wants you to be an adult when you are still so young, that's why you aren't the leader of the team. For what it's worth, our lack of interference wasn't from a place of not wanting to help but from a place of respecting Batman's position as your guardian however much we don't agree. You can still be a kid despite your title."

"Can I?" He sounded desperate, he knew he did but he really did need to know. How could he still be a teenager when he didn't feel that way anymore? He didn't know how to connect with his friends outside of the Mountain where they weren't training. Sure they had fun together but he always felt like there was clingfilm on their friendship where he could feel some sort of connection yet there was always something there standing in between them. Wally understood sometimes that he didn't quite understand how to be a kid and he was really great at being there. It was just that Robin didn't want Wally to understand. He wanted to just do that connection that everyone else could do. "Connor is better at being a teenager than me and he's not even lived long enough to be one!"

"Are you jealous of him for that? Are you jealous of the team for seemingly being able to connect more with their civilian lives as teenagers?" He stared at her and thought about it.

"Yeah. I guess I am. I'm jealous of all of them really that somehow despite all they've been through that they've managed to keep that-that thing. They always know how to treat each other without babying or adultifying one another. They just don't know what to do with me which is okay because even I don't know what to do with me.  I don't think anyone really does."

"It's hard to take off the mask but I think you need to. I believe that because you're always Robin, they don't know how to treat you like yourself and like a respected vigilante. You've always been their experienced teammate even when you're out of uniform but I think it's time to actually show them who you are. It helps them to visually see a difference."

"But what about Batman? I have to be completely confident in this decision because he'll be so mad when he finds out they know who I am and I don't know that I am."

"You already trust them with your life, why not trust them with who you are?"

"For some reason, it's easier," he admitted softly. "I don't like that it is but it just is."

"Maybe because if they fail to save your life, you understand it's a mistake and you know it's the perils of the job. I don't think you know if you can handle the perils of them actually knowing Dick Grayson because he's far more vulnerable than you allow yourself to be here." She put a hand on his knee comfortingly. "But you are more than ready to take the plunge."

"It's scary. I've already met Artemis briefly when she didn't know who I was and she probably hated me. My whole annoying schtick isn't half as good when I'm not saving someone's life or keeping the mood light."

"You're still that kid who did all that. You'll just also be the kid who causes chaos at galas and intentionally made the press think Bruce Wayne was dating Batman."

Black Canary took her hand off his knee and held it out with her palm upwards. He knew what she wanted. He didn't think he'd have to do it right now because this was a massive change and he always planned. Every possible scenario was assigned a solution, a plan because that's what he'd been taught to do. Spontaneous actions were in fact practised and pre-planned. This was like a baptism by fire. Shakily, he put his hand to his sunglasses and gently slid them off his face. Then, hesitantly as though he was feeding a starving lion, he placed them in her palm. She snatched them away before he could go back on his decision. 

"Practice."

"Practice what?"

"Practice saying your name. Introduce yourself to me." He rolled his eyes at the exercise, briefly forgetting that she could actually see them.

"I know how to say my name Canary," he grumbled.

"Then say it."

"My name's Dick Grayson," he stated flatly. She gave him an unimpressed look.

"Now say it like a human."

"My name's Dick Grayson," he repeated, this time with his usual animation. 

"Good. Now, go introduce yourself."

Robin had faced many terrors that your average teenager would never know of nor be able to truly comprehend. Yet, now standing just outside the doorway with his hand against the wall to support him because his legs were shaking, here that once great hero stood terrified of what he'd be met with. Wally knew who Dick was. They'd introduced themselves by their real names faster than anyone could tell them not to so naturally they were best friends. The rest of the team had no idea. He took a deep breath and just pushed himself forward until he was through the doorway and there was no way he could go back now they'd seen him and-

"DICK GRAYSON IS ROBIN?"