Robin's eyes snapped open from underneath his mask, pounding headache and the tingling in his arm gone completely.

He felt as good as new!

Raven's healing powers were totally aster.

Hopping out, he smoothed down his wrinkled costume and walked to the kitchen where he rested with a steaming glass of Herbal Tea. No sooner than an hour later, the rest of the Titans walked in. Beast Boy stared incredulously at the Boy Wonder as he cooked them all breakfast. Robin ignored the looks he got when he used the arm previously marred by Cyborg's sonic cannon.

"Dude, you can use that arm?"

Robin spared the Tin Man a grin, flipping pancakes onto plates for all of them. With a push and a few slides they were making their way down the table.

"Yep! Totally feeling the aster. Traught to space!"

The Titans shared looks of confusion.

"What does this 'Aster' and the 'Traught' mean, Robin? I do not recall learning those words." Starfire asked as they all settled down to eat. Robin himself was the only one without a plate stacked with the fluffy mixture, instead settling with a grapefruit. No one said anything about that.

"New words made up by the one, the only, ME! If there can be disaster and distraught, why not aster and traught?"

Starfire blinked. "So, these new words mean something that has gone correctly and that everything is being the perfect, nothing is the worrying you?" With a nod of Robin's head, there were a few murmurs of confusion and forks clinked against china.

Of course, there was the occasional outburst of laughter from Beast Boy after one of Cyborg's jokes, and the silent departure of Raven. But otherwise, everything was quiet.

And to Robin, quiet meant awkward.

Awkward meant weird.

Weird meant awkward.

Oh, it was all just an annoyingly endless cycle, wasn't it?

"ICECUBES!"

A chunk of pancake went flying towards him, half chewed and covered in slobber. With feral instincts he shot out of the chair like a bullet, avoiding the disgusting piece of breakfast with a flip and a crisp clink of boots on marble. 

Laughter filled the air, a mix of deep and hearty guffaws and high-pitched squealing. Surprisingly, the latter was coming from both Starfire and Beast Boy.  "D-Dude! What was that?!" The Changeling shrieked, shaking with his bouts of chortles along with the metal fists banging on the table. 

"It was quiet. Silence is awkward." 

More howls of laughter. Robin shrugged, letting that new, wide grin spread across his face. Gosh, had he missed that feeling. The one of making ridiculous jokes and jabbing fun at everyone, freaking them out with his disappearing 'tricks.' But soon, the Titan's were settled, and all was once more quiet. 

Well, less quiet than before. It wasn't soundless. Thankfully. 

"So, how'd you guys like the breakfast?"

~~~

Here he was again. The place where he had gotten hurt. 

The Titan's weren't letting him do anything difficult. Not even a cartwheel. It made him angry, outraged even. Boiling hot asperity bubbled down below in his stomach like a sizzling stew made on Christmas Eve. Heck, they had even bandaged his arm so tightly that he could barely move it. 

The mere things he was actually allowed to do filled him with rancor. Speaking the exercises made his mouth bitter and dry. Three words could sum up all of these emotions, something so easily said it made his malevolence twist into astringent laughter. 

He hated it. 

Oh, such simple words. Yet they were the ones that made energy that hadn't been there before course through his veins. Energy made up of anger. The ones that let him do that one-armed pull-up so much faster than he already was. 

It was so easy. 

He hated it. 

His bandaged arm lay limp by his side as his chin lifted once more above the bar, vision lowering again moments later. Masked eyes scanned the room, finding his friends all doing their appropriate exercises. Ones that were so much harder than his own. 

He hated it. 

He hated, hated, hatedhatedhated despised it. 

He switched to his other arm, wincing at the slight discomfort it provided, but prevailing nonetheless.

They couldn't tell him what to do. 

Another pull-up, this one slower than the others on his good arm. He pushed himself harder, pulled himself towards the bar harder, did anything to make himself improve. All he got was a burning pain from his arm muscles saying "Shut up, I'm trying."

Well, trying wasn't satisfying. 

Enough of that. 

He let his fingers uncurl from the bar and felt his feet finally hit solid ground. The thump alerted the other Titans, something that he mentally cursed himself out in all of the languages he knew for. Yet as quickly as they had looked his way they had turned back around. Something that he was thankful for. 

Enough of that.

In a moment's notice he was by the balance beam. The only thing that no one else ever used. Not counting the trapeze in the ceiling, of course. Or the uneven bars. Or the Still rings. Uh.. Never mind.

And he jumped up, palms slapping against the beam and his heels thrown up towards the ceiling. His hands grew cold from the smooth yet freezing wood as he pivoted in the handstand, ignoring the protest his injury gave. Although it was gone from his arm, it still remained in his muscles, he remembered. 

The clink of his boots landing on the beam cleared his head from the angry thoughts and he brought himself upright. Gently, gracefully he pranced around on the tall beam with the poise of a deer. Of course, he threw in a few flips or front walkovers here and there, with the pain of his internal wound clouding his thoughts a bit more each time. 

But he kept on moving forward. That is, until his arms gave out in exhaustion and Robin was all but a limp, sweating body on the floor.