flashbossXD wanted an expansion from one of my random dialogues soooo here we are 

Yet another movie night went by where Robin didn't turn up. He'd given the same excuse as he always did. Patrol. Although it seemed like he was using that excuse a lot more than he usually did. The very thought of the word "patrol" made the team groan in annoyance. Robin was the only one out of them who went on patrols. They stuck to missions and the occasional night out if they suspected something suspicious was about to go down with their bigger villains. Their leader went out every single night and he'd only been going out for longer. He didn't take nights off unless he was near mortally wounded. When they asked him what he wanted to do for his birthday, he asked them to make sure there was coffee in the pot when he got home so he didn't have to go without after patrol. It was sad in a way. At least, they thought it was. They couldn't understand why he'd rather spend his time punching some random mugger in the face than sit with them and enjoy an actual teenager activity. They knew that he wasn't avoiding them explicitly. He was happy to spend his time with them. He even started doing his reports in the living room so he could pitch in on conversations. When they came together to talk about it, Robin was not included for obvious reasons, their theory was he couldn't cover the whole city in one night so when he locked up the criminals on one side it was already too late for him to get the other side and it had ramped up recently because the city was hitting a crime spike. Every night he'd get the places he missed the previous night and the cycle would repeat as more new criminals hit the scene. It would be thrown all the way off if there were long fights or if he had a mission that ate up a lot of the night. They assumed it was just some vicious cycle. So when they once again heard the excuse of patrol, they decided to help out. 

"Can we go on patrol with you?" Beast Boy asked that morning. Robin looked up from his notes at the teen and furrowed his eyebrows.

"But I'm not sick or injured?" he responded. They couldn't blame him for the assumption since they did have to go out sometimes to grab him when he got sick or injured and one of them accompanied him when he was bouncing back from something that benched him. None of them could forget the heart attack that was seeing a flu-ridden Robin taking a nap on the very edge of a building and nearly rolling off the edge.  

"We know, we just thought we'd try it out?" the teen continued. A small smile appeared on their leader's face at the clarification and, if they weren't mistaken, something about him seemed warm to the idea. 

"Sure. Did you want to try it out by yourselves or do it as a group?" His tone was the happiest they'd heard in the last few weeks. They knew patrols meant a lot to him but they could never place why. It seemed to them like it was just a routine he continued from Batman that he couldn't get out of but maybe there was more to it than that. Either that or he was looking forward to not spending his whole night running around by himself trying to protect an entire city. 

"By ourselves would be nice," Raven offered on behalf of the group. It would be much easier to sweep up the streets quickly if they were all spread out to do so. He nodded and glanced down at his notes. 

"I'll finish this up and then I'll plot your routes. Any preferences?" They shook their heads. He hummed and none of them missed how fast he finished his work following the conversation. It was nice to see him so excited for them to do what he did every night. "Oh, I suggest you all take naps. The first all-nighter can be hard to get through. If this is a regular thing then I'll set up your nap schedule."

"Nap schedule?" Starfire repeated. They'd never seen him nap unless he was on medication. Something about it just knocked him out so easily. 

"Yeah. The first year is the hardest so you have a nap schedule. Then you start missing a few, have caffeine for the first time, stress-induced insomnia, PTSD related nightmares," he listed but promptly stopped upon the looks he was being given. "I'm sensing concern."

"You'd be correct," Raven replied.

"Well, I'll be taking my leave. I'll have your schedule done for tonight. Be ready for eight." They nodded and watched him gather up his notes before going to his office with what could only be described as a skip in his step. Maybe they should've asked him sooner.

Robin had the whole night planned and double checked everything with them to make sure they'd stay safe. He checked their comms, his equipment, the plan and even the weather. It was almost fatherly the way he worried over them despite only one of them is actually younger than him. They enjoyed it though. It was like their offer breathed new life into their leader and showed a more overtly tender side to him. "Okay, so you'll all be taking different parts of the city. I split it up equally too so we should all have something to do. There are usually low points in the night so I've set up a place for us all to meet or for you to just chill," he explained, pointing to a map of the city. "Comms are open all night so if you need any help, let me know. I put snacks there too but you'd probably want to get there before BB."

"You really thought all this through," Cyborg commented.

"Of course I did. Your first patrol has to be a good one or else it'll just feel like work. Technically mine was saving Batman from the man who murdered my parents but the one after that was much better. I count that as my first since I wasn't Robin then, I was just in the suit."

"Robin, you really need to tell us these things without it being an off-handed comment," he replied. 

"Nah, you guys just put my trauma on a higher pedestal because I don't have powers," Robin retorted quite calmly. "Back to the task at hand, we should be good to go."

"Then what are we waiting for," Beast Boy asked, catching the excitement bug. He smiled at the younger.

"Exactly!"

From the way he acted in the beginning, they thought this would be the thing to bring them all together but they'd overseen one tiny problem. They had powers and Robin didn't. Now, they didn't mean to discount their powers. Everyone knew full well that they had these abilities and that had made work that would usually take Robin much longer now take half that time. He'd adapted to the new flow of things so they thought them taking over this activity wouldn't bring up anything negative. In fact, they thought that if they got this all done much faster, they'd spend more time together more often and maybe he'd actually get some sleep. Unfortunately, Robin hadn't expected them to make quick work of patrol. What he thought would happen was that they'd feel thrown off their game from having to find crime or they'd get tired from the constant stream of criminals. Instead of them becoming overwhelmed, they shredded through the work faster than he ever could just as they'd expected. That was terrifying for the teen hero. "What do you mean you're done?" he asked when he called to check in on them. He thought they were joking. Pulling his leg. Maybe even lying just to get out of work but they weren't. He'd heard the truth and he knew he had but he didn't want to believe that he was obsolete by comparison.

"We cleared out all our areas. Great isn't it? That means we can all head back much earlier than you thought," Beast Boy replied. That excitement was back in his tone, blissfully unaware of the sting his announcement had caused. The acrobat's shoulders went slack before growing tight and tense. Something swirled in his stomach that he only ever felt when he was around Bruce. The exact feeling he'd been running away from. 

"I'm not done here but you guys can go back," he responded, doing his best to maintain his light tone.

"Oh don't worry! We got bored and covered your area too," the changeling continued to explain. He sounded happy about it but Robin felt anything but that. They did all his work in a handful of hours when it took him all night. He knew they had advantages but he didn't think they were that far ahead of him. Was it really that easy for them? Then why was it so hard for him still? 

"No injuries or anything?" He hated that he wanted them to be hurt in some way. He truly despised himself for wanting it.

"All good," Cyborg assured him. Guilt hit him like a semi-truck but he felt resentment at that moment as much as he didn't want to. 

"Oh cool yeah I guess we should go back. I can't remember when I finished patrol so early." He'd never finished early without being injured. They'd done his job faster than he ever could and they hadn't gotten hurt in the process. Inadequacy had never hit him so hard and his brain was soon swimming in rancid thoughts. He hadn't felt like this before with them. He knew they had an upper hand but he always took some solace that his experience put him on the same level but it hadn't. They'd done his job. They could get everything done faster. If they could do that then why the hell was he their leader? Why was he even there? Was this why he'd been replaced so easily? If he wasn't enough for Bruce then how was he good enough for them?

"Robin?" Starfire called. He must've been quiet for a bit too long. 

"Great work everyone," he announced, hoping they couldn't hear the bitter tone. "I might use this as an early night."

"Oh but we thought we could all go back and watch a movie," the alien pouted. 

"Sorry, I'm just tired. Maybe another time."

Instead of freeing up his time, Robin seemed busier than ever so they kept accompanying him on patrols but that seemed to only make him busier. There was always an excuse for why he couldn't hang out with them anymore but it wasn't like before when they made sense. Now they were confusing and often reused, sometimes exposing his lies. For example, he said he had to fill out a case report on the crook Beast Boy caught but when someone else asked he said it was for Starfire but then reverted back to Beast Boy. "I don't understand," Starfire sighed with a frown. She'd been looking forward to all this new time together but she felt even more neglected now. He wasn't even present when they were forced to spend time together like for dinner or training. Although he was in the room, he wasn't engaged in what any of them were saying. They couldn't tell if it was out of anger or out of sadness and they couldn't tell if either of those were supposed to be directed at them. "We have done his work yet he still remains in his office."

"Did we do something wrong?" Beast Boy asked glumly. They didn't know so they remained silent. If they had then they didn't know why but that didn't make the hurt any less valid but if they hadn't then they were being unjustly iced out and that wasn't fair on them. This was a team and they had to communicate issues. "Should we go talk to him?"

"He's a protege of Batman, they don't communicate," Cyborg informed him. "Batman didn't even tell him about the new Robin."

"The new Robin?" the younger repeated.

"Yeah, didn't you hear about it? The kid was on the news recently. He got picked up a month back, around the time," his sentence trailed off but they all caught where he was going. It was around the time Robin started working more. That's why he'd been working so hard. Maybe that's why he was so excited to get them into the work too. It meant he could share it with someone other than Batman and it wouldn't make him feel bad. "But why would that make him worse around us after we helped out?" he asked nobody in particular. "Surely we'd help the situation?"

"I don't know that we did," Raven commented. She had a feeling that she'd been trying to push down. When she heard him speak that night, she thought it had just been the exhaustion catching up with him mixed with relief but under a different light, it sounded like he was disappointed. She just couldn't understand why.

Speak of the devil, Robin entered the room as the information sank in on his teammates although he didn't know that. They watched him carefully and didn't like what they were seeing. He looked dead on his feet like he hadn't slept in days and they could hazard a guess as to why. He went straight to the kitchen but turned to them with a questioning look when he felt their stares at him.  "What?" he asked.

"We know you're upset," Raven told him. He liked that about her. She kept things straight forward and it made it easier to understand things but in this case, he hated it for her. He knew he wasn't exactly inconspicuous but he thought he was doing an okay job at hiding it. Great, he wasn't even good at hiding his emotions. Why did they bother to let him join the team? Anything he provided, they could've just picked up like that new Robin probably already had. 

"I'm not upset. I'm busy with work. There is a big difference," he argued but they didn't believe him. They could replace him at the drop of a hat so he had to at least prove he could be professional. What would that do in the long run though? He could feel himself getting worked up and as much as he hated to admit it to himself, he was one push from snapping. He couldn't even get that right.

"We know something happened and we think it has something about joining on patrol-"

"I get it. You can do my job better than me because you can do everything better than me with your fancy powers. You just didn't have to be so rude about it," he barked out. He turned around to snatch his coffee cup from the counter but didn't make any moves to run off like he usually would. This isn't what he wanted. He didn't talk about his emotions but he couldn't just run away whenever he felt uncomfortable. That wasn't what a leader did. Snapping at them wasn't the answer either. It wasn't their fault they were better than him or that he'd been replaced by a  shiny new toy. 

"But we did it so you could hang out with us," Beast Boy explained. "We didn't mean to make you upset."

"That doesn't make me feel any less shitty. I've been doing this since I was nine and it's how I cope. You ruined it." He let out a sigh, feeling his anger leave as soon as he said they ruined it. They hadn't. He did it to himself. It didn't help that his team looked so disheartened by his comment. "Sorry, you didn't ruin it. That's going too far. I'll get over it, it's fine."

"You're not fine Robin," Raven told him and he knew she was telling the truth but that didn't make it any easier to hear.

"I know," he responded defeatedly. What was the point of denying it at this stage?

"Do you wanna talk about it?" Cyborg asked, hoping he'd say yes. 

"Not really but also yes? I don't know. Bats didn't teach me all of this stuff!"

"You mean having emotions?" the older clarified. He wanted to correct him but it was true. Batman didn't focus on civilian things like that. The only training he had in emotions was separating them from cases and keeping them in check so he could fight with a clear mind. That didn't tell him how he was supposed to deal with them in a healthy way. It was left to him to find out but he never could get a handle on it. He ran away when they got too big to deal with. It was taking everything in him now not to do just that and take sanctuary in his work but lately that hadn't been as comforting. Nothing was. "We want to know what's going on with you."

"It won't affect my work, I promise. If anything, I'm more productive. We're like two weeks ahead of schedule now," he assured them but that wasn't the answer they wanted judging by their ever-deepening frowns.

"We do not care about your work! We care about you," Starfire told him.

"Oh," he said simply. He must look so pathetic being caught off guard by something so little as them caring. Of course, they cared, he was part of the team. Perhaps that was the reason they kept him around even when he had so little to offer them. Experience was probably the only thing he offered that none of them had. The ability to bury emotions also worked to provide something. "I have to confess I'm not completely sure how to deal with this sort of stuff."

"We don't have to talk about everything right away," Raven informed him. "We would like to know though."

"It's too hard," he replied, sounding much more childish than he'd have liked.

"Then at least tell us what we did on patrol to make you avoid us," she bargained. He sighed, suddenly feeling juvenile for his reasoning.

"You did my work faster than I ever could."

There was some silence and he felt like dying right on the spot. It was so stupid but it had sent him reeling and made him question his place here. If they could do what he could do but faster then why the hell was he here? "It made me...self-conscious. About being here. Being your leader and all, there has to be some reason for it but if all I have is experience then why aren't I a team member who advises? Why am I the leader of a group of people so great that they can do my work in half the time?" he continued before he could stop himself.

"You're insecure about not having powers?" Beast Boy clarified. He nodded in response. As much as he wished he was secure as himself, it simply wasn't true. He wasn't that little kid running about Gotham who made do with what he had. He was now actively working with people with powers almost beyond his comprehension. It would be abnormal not to look around and compare. "Dude, you're Robin! You do what we do without powers, that's still impressive."

"It's a game of catch up. I shouldn't be congratulated like I'm the only person ever to do this job without powers."

"You shouldn't be comparing yourself to us in the first place. You're playing checkers and we're playing dominos," Cyborg insisted.

"Then why make me the leader of dominos when I'm playing checkers?"

"Because you understand the game better than you give yourself credit for. We lost you once and we fell apart. Give yourself credit that you're able to put us together even if you don't have the abilities we have." He hummed. He wanted to believe them but he just couldn't. They seemed to recognise that. "We think you're pretty impressive but you're not going to believe it right away. It'll be something we work on."

"Why are you catering to me? It's the stupidest thing to be insecure about."

"Because you're the best Robin we have." 

"I'm the only Robin you have," he replied with a small bashful smile. Compliments had been in short supply growing up and it was so painfully obvious. "I appreciate you guys. I know I've been a bit of a prick about things but you know that I really do care about you all, right?"

"We do. You wanna watch a movie? I think we've emotioned you out." He cackled softly and nodded. 

"I'd love to."