Tumbling clumsily through the window in the dark, exhausted down to his bones, in absence of his usual grace. He drags himself into her tiny bathroom to pull off the uniform, doesn't bother with the light switch, while she pretends to be asleep under the sheets.

The last year has been…hard. To say the least. It's difficult to know where they are now, where they stand with each other, and she thinks both of them have given up trying.

They don't bother with words. Because words are what got them into this mess in the first place. Words hurt, and they've both done enough hurting for a long time.

Instead, he finds his way unerringly to her bed in the dark. And she welcomes him with silence and open arms and a guarded heart.

He doesn't mind. He has always taken her any way she was willing to give.

He settles behind her, breath hitching as his weight lands on bruises, new and old. Still, though, he reaches for her.

She turns in his arms, rolls so that she can press her forehead into his neck, listen for that damned big heart of his, wide open even now. Even after all she's done to hurt him.

Her partner, her Robin, her sometimes lover.

No matter the other names she calls him–-the ones that crumble and fall away and build back up again according to their whims–-he will always be her best friend.

She doesn't know why they can't figure this thing out, what's between them. Maybe one day they will.

But for tonight she only holds him. Lets him crush her with the strength of his fear and anger and hurt, too tight, lets him cry, just a little, into the place where her neck joins her shoulder. She pulls him into herself, holds him carefully within the beat of her heart so he can rest.

He lets her be his backbone, for a little while. No one is strong forever.

She is what he needs right now.

She'll hold him through the night, her Robin, as long as he'll let her–-hold him and try to hang on to her heart.

That's what best friends do.