Verisimilitude

Accepting Leadership

He was officially diagnosed with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) a few days later.

Dinah said he had probably originally gotten it during the Invasion or sometime after, and it had lingered inside his head during the simulated years and was now showing up in reality. It had been agitated when he woke up and realized that part of his life was fake, That was why he was getting the flashbacks, the nightmares .

That was why he was in the therapy room, where he spent most of his time besides aimlessly walking through the halls of the Cave or training. He had been particularly tempted once to hack into public records and look up Stephanie, Jason, or Damian.

But, in the end, he couldn't.

For one, Stephanie might be off the grid due to her father, Jason would be on the streets, and Damian wouldn't have been born yet.

The real reason was that he couldn't take the answer. If they did exist, they wouldn't be the same people he once knew. If they didn't, then there wasn't a chance they could ever become that person to him.

So he resisted the temptation, spending the day trying to either forget it ever happened or pretend it was all real. He was stuck between those two choices. Two worlds.

Wally's birthday had came and gone, bringing up more unwanted memories and fake smiles. He hated himself for not being able to help his friend enjoy his sixteenth birthday, but it was just too difficult to smile and pretend like everything was okay.

He was tired of pretending. Tired of lying. Tired of smiling like everything was dandy and that nothing was wrong.

Because something was wrong.

/Robin, Kid Flash, Superboy, Miss Martian.\ He tensed when he heard Batman's voice over the loudspeaker. /Report for mission briefing.\

He clasped his cape on as he left the room. He had been getting better with moving in it, but preferred to be without it. After he exited however, he way was soon blocked by Black Canary.

"Robin, I just want to make sure you're up for this." She said to him softly, "If you're not ready yet, you don't have to go."

"I have to go." His voice was quiet, "I-I can't keep running forever."

"You're not running." She told him, before leaving the comment alone. "Aqualad's too busy to go on this mission. That will make you leader."

No emotion passed over his face, but he froze. He hadn't lead a team since the Invasion unless you counted patrol in Gotham. He disliked giving orders, and if he ever had to he placed them as suggestions so whoever he was talking to could refuse.

Leader.

"Robin." He felt Black Canary shake him slightly, forcing him out of the grasp of the memory that was about to come up.

"I'll be fine." The lie tumbled out of his mouth before he even registered anything. He knew for a fact that he would be the exact opposite of okay.

Black Canary looked at him for a moment before replying "Okay." In a tone that said that she didn't believe him, "But if anything happens, don't be afraid to call. Nobody would blame you if you had to leave the mission. Don't push yourself unnecessarily, you have nothing to prove."

He gave her a small nod, before moving to make his way to the mission room. His footsteps were silent on the cold floor and he didn't look up until he took his place next to Conner and M'gann, Artemis and Wally coming in a few seconds later.

"Rumaan Harjavti is the democratically-elected leader of Qurac," his mentor started, his gruff voice echoing throughout the Cave as he pulled up several pictures on the holographic computer in the mission room. "Harjavti has been praised as a fair, wise leader, a humanitarian." His eyes flickered to the recording that popped up of Bruce Wayne and Rumaan Harjavti shaking hands.