For Forbidden Love's "Summer Fanfic Contest". Robin/Raven pairing.

Summary: Summer is warm, and leaves him hopeful. Perhaps her words will help him survive the colder months. R/R

Disclaimer: I don't own the characters.

Notes: Many seasons are mentioned in this story, but the theme stems from summer. The story is meant to illustrate the timeless feeling of summer months, when you just float day to day, without really focusing on what happens when it's all over. So, more than just taking place during the summer, Robin's attitude is meant to reflect the theme. Hence, the other seasons being thrown in are just there to make the theme more apparent.

Dedicated to John-for old times' sake.

For a long time, Robin never bothered with the future. He barely thought beyond the next days or weeks, and it wasn't until Raven came along that he could picture time in whole years. She made it easier, because she could pull him out of himself, and break things into seasons.

She made the pills easier to swallow. Raven told him that he spent half the year in the past, and the other time in the present. She explained to him how he reacted to the weather, and holidays, and all the other things she'd observed over the years. These days, he knows how to look for signs within himself, to note the seasons' changing. Like any bird, one could read in him the weather reports, and note a solstice more easily than with any calendar. The world had taught him how to read others, but Raven told him how to read himself.

"I've seen you dying in the winter, burying yourself under old tents."

It was true, how crazy he became in colder months. He remembered pushing them off the Tower years and years ago. Remembered times before that, when he had hit her, and how he always managed to find cold alleys to sleep in, and photos to rip, glass to break, walls to punch. In winter, he remembers other winters, until he is trapped in a vortex-watching him watch himself, remembering the times when he remembered.

"You're reborn in the spring, rising from your tent-pole-prison to rebuild. You like to remember the good times when the trees blossom."

Breathing deeply scents of honey and vanilla-candles, he'd fidget restlessly in the kitchen. Hours, sitting, either watching pale sun stretch toward him, or hard drops of rain splattering on the windows.

If it was a clear, sunny day, a cloudless May, he would take small trips around the island. Wild violets grew in clusters around the base of his home, and he would pick them absentmindedly, weaving them together with deft fingers. The purple flowers stained his hands if he took off the gauntlets, and he was cheerful enough to let them. For May-Day he would leave tiny violet crowns in the doors-these days, he makes sure to find daisies for Raven, because they stand out better against her hair.

For Mothers' Day, he weaves baskets and tiny boat-like structures, and sets them out to sea. Sometimes he'll send a basket to Alfred, who is great enough to understand the sentiment.

Years when it rains, he stays inside and lights extra candles, flames in every room to haunt him like tiny ghosts, and he smiles at them, glad to feel their presence. He prefers the flames to actual ghosts, because the flames are warm, and bright, and comforting.

The Tower always ended up reeking of sickly-sweet vanilla, even after he blows away his ghosts, leaving phantoms of phantoms to curl about the high ceiling.

"By the time summer comes, you're back in the present, happy, laid back, and awkward. Your tents stand firm, offering shade and comfort."

Summer was a good time for them. It was all about strawberries and storms and adolescence. That's how Raven liked to put it anyway, and Robin liked the way she did so-poetic like, and optimistic. And that's what summer held for him-optimism, hope, benevolence. He'd sleep outside next to her, and in the morning he'd wake up, and imagine things being that way forever. The only time he thought of the future was to remind himself that he'd always have Raven.

He really believed it, when the sun was on his skin and the ocean breeze lifted her hair. There was nothing beyond the sun. No city beyond the ocean. There was no life beyond the two of them.

"Fall is your descent. You go a little crazy, preparing for winter, whittling away at those tent-poles. No longer lazy, but manic, trying to fill the days before you hole up to die. You never seem more alive than when you know you're dying."

It was one of his favorite times, even if the pattern was self-destructive. He was still happy in the fall, even if it were bittersweet as a lightning-storm.

He liked to take her on millions of dates in the fall, leaving the comfort of their island to explore the city once again. There were crisp leaves to chase one another through, and coffee-shops with bright interiors to rest in-sitting across from one another and holding hands beneath the table. They were happy and nervous and in love, and he'd take off his mask for a bit so they could blend in-sipping hot cider, staying out late, playing impossible games of tag in revolving-doors.

When the weather turned and frost thickened on the trees, he'd start catching the scent of iron in the air. His mouth would taste like old pennies, and he'd suck his tongue, irked. Eventually, he realized that this was also the time when she would worry about him, when she'd hold his hand all hours of the day.

Sometimes he'd kiss her too hard, and her lip would bleed, and he'd realize what the iron and pennies meant, and the next day there would be one of those rare snowstorms on the way.

But it was summer now, and he stretched out on the roof, surveying his tents. They were striped and bright and solid, and when the wind blew, the snap of their canvas brought a smile to his lips. Though he knew otherwise, deep down, he thought they looked like they could stand forever. After all, they stood on ground wrought with late-night book discussions, slender arms, sunrises and sunsets, and were held together with the silly ties he sent to Bruce each year on Fathers' Day, to pretend he'd let everything go.

In the shelter of his tents, he spent long days with Raven. In their safety he could hold her at night without shaking, and lose himself in the books she loaned him. They would spend hours afterwards discussing plot twists and characters, suddenly more friends than a couple, and those hours felt more right than anything ever had.

He took her swimming in the mornings, and in the afternoon they'd take walks and talk about things like school and a regular identity for each of them. On rainy days they'd spend time with the rest of the team, and retreat to their rooms later. He'd convinced her to get some brighter lights and some art for the walls, while she'd helped him throw away old newspaper clippings. She claimed that one day, she'd scan them all into the computer, and fix up his wall with something less-obsessive.

When the rain cleared, they returned to beach, wrote their names in the sand, drew things around their footprints. Within an hour the tide would erase their work, and they vowed to work closer to the grass next time, knowing full well that it would never happened. They liked watching the evidence of their passing washed away, the thought of their names carried out to sea.

This year he found himself sappier than ever before. Three years as an official couple, and they still acted like new lovers. Some days he'd stop suddenly, watching Cyborg or Starfire or Beastboy stare at him in amusement. Cyborg would smirk at him, faintly, while the changeling and Starfire giggled into their hands, and he'd realized he'd been humming the entire time. Songs he barely remembered, that he hadn't heard in ages, buzzed between his lips. Soft lullabies, soaring waltzes, and occasionally a bright circus tune would vibrate from him, and everything would become light and cheerful and okay again.

Other times, he'd be on his bed, filling out reports, and find that-once again-he'd doodled hearts and ravens in the margins, dark feathers curling in the familiar, clichéd shape of a lacy valentine. And because it was summer, and he was in the present and happier than he wanted to remember, he'd just smile and not bother with embarrassment.

That summer, he lay back into the headboard, and just enjoyed being in love.

For a long time, Robin never bothered with the future. Then, he had Raven, and she became the future that he thought about all the time. He tried to put her in his past, to weave her into the backdrop of his grief, but it never felt right to him. That summer, he'd been content to hold her close in the present, until she showed him exactly how he was living. In the summer, his life was okay, in the warm months he was a whole human being, but she wanted more from him, and that day, on the roof, he decided to give it to her.

He put her in his tents.

He erected newer, brighter structures around her as the others began to rot. With Raven in his future, and the sunlight all around him, he found new confidence for autumn, when he would find new poles, stronger poles, to keep their tents standing. With Raven in his tents, he found the need to keep them together.

When winter came, and the old tents fell away, he was not there to wallow beneath them. He had a single structure remaining, and it was strong and safe and more than enough for him. When his mouth started tasting like old change, he'd leaned against her, a bit weak, and he didn't think about the bad times at all.

He just thought about her, and the future, and lived.

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