𝙁𝙊𝙍 𝙏𝙃𝙀 𝘽𝙀𝙏𝙏𝙀𝙍- 𝙋𝙇𝘼𝙏𝙊𝙉𝙄𝘾 𝙎𝙏𝙊𝘽𝙄𝙉

𝙁𝙊𝙍 𝙏𝙃𝙀 𝘽𝙀𝙏𝙏𝙀𝙍

"I think it's time for us, Steve."

The words came out of nowhere, but they'd both been waiting for them for a while. It had been an odd while- a while full of hoping and wishing and desperation, but also a while full of dread.

A while full of knowing that what they had decided on was fully for the better.

Steve placed down his mug as Robin placed down her book. He looked at her with deep eyes; saddening and quiet and sore. He knew that she would've been the one to decide for them. He could have never done it himself.

They looked upon each other for a moment. Robin's shoulders had drooped- they weren't as confident and perky as they had been before. Steve's were the same. His posture was small... hiding. He was hiding.
Hiding from something that was so widely unfair but something that they had both always wanted.

He nodded slowly.
"You think?"

It was almost as if the whole world had paused as he peered upon his best friend's face. She looked so unlike the Robin that he had known her to be; the Robin that was kind, caring- even if she had a unique way of showing it. The Robin that always knew where she stood, what she deserved, what she wanted... and now the Robin who seemed completely lost within it all.

Lost not only to herself but to everything she had ever known.
Even him.

She nodded back, eyes beginning to glue themselves to the floor.
"I think so. It's been getting worse, y'know."

The living-room that they were placed in seemed hazily vacant. The bodies sitting within the walls had become silent, and the mouths attached to them had become hauntingly downcasted.  
Steve nodded again, slumping without a word.

They had seen it coming. They'd seen it in the change of behavior, in the constant reassuring conversations that they had discussed since they had first met. The ones that read 'I could never live without you', even if put across subliminally.

Steve could always pick messages out from her words. Messages that she wanted him to know but never wanted to voice, messages that were too deep and too sensitive to be said out loud- and now, he was picking apart the final one that either of them could ever receive.

He didn't even need to decode it. The look that her eyes carried alongside the statement had told him all that he needed to know.

Robin watched closely. She didn't want to witness his reaction or feel the way that she could sense his heart had dropped. She didn't even want to voice it, but she knew that he'd know that. She didn't even know if she'd ever have to say it, in the end.

Or whether she'd even have the time.

They continued the heartbreaking silence. Something that would continue for eternity in that house, once the others had found them there.

"For the better?" Steve decided to mouth, clinging onto the last remaining moments before he had to come to the final realisation that it would never get better for them, not even if they begged and pleaded that it would.

The two of them had lived through hell to get where they were that night- metaphorically and literally. Their friends were gone, families M.I.A, and the town that they had dealt with for their entire lives had been in nothing but ruins for months, if not years.

It wasn't actually clear if anyone would even find them there after they'd gone- but that, thinking about it, was definitely at least one thing that was for the better.

"For the better." Robin repeated as she locked eyes with her best friend for what could've been the final time. She hated the thought- hated the possibility that she'd never be able to see him again- but, she still hoped more than anything that wherever they'd end up, they'd end up together.