Jacket - Robin, John Stoker, Kira Burke

Winter in Los Angeles is barely winter. At least according to Kira, whose school in Oregon saw real snow every year. Robin’s never seen more than faint flurries. It sounds magical, but if it’s even colder than the weather is today, he’ll pass.
A chilly breeze is blowing off the grey ocean, and the dampness hangs in the air, making its way into his bones. He zips his dad’s jacket up as far as he can, tucking his hands in the pockets. He hasn’t taken anything out of them, there’s a gum wrapper that crinkles with real foil, the kind almost no one makes anymore, a lighter almost out of fluid even though Robin doesn’t think Adam ever smoked, and a peppermint candy that’s covered in dust even in its plastic wrapper.
In the other pocket is a folded picture of Robin and Ellie. Robin is standing in the yard and Ellie is bent down over him, both of them looking at the camera and smiling. The picture is creased in half at Robin’s shoulders in the picture, the crease thick like a seam and worn white, like the photo’s been opened up and closed again multiple times.
With the sun down, the chill creeps through the streets like the shadows. Robin steps into the slight shelter of the side of a building. The vamp they’re looking for hunts this area and they’re basically on stakeout patrol (and John has already made EVERY possible variation of a pun on that) until he shows.
Kira scampers up the side of the building to perch on a fire escape three stories up, getting a good overhead view of the area. Kira reminds him of the alley cats, agile and lethal. She’s a shadow, moving fast and striking faster. Robin’s impressed with her ability to take advantage of every handhold. She’d tried to teach him too, but too many things she uses to help her climb have too high an iron content. And since wearing gloves can be dangerous because of potential slipping, Robin finally decided he’d leave the climbing to her.
With her on watch, John and Robin prep their gear. Cody’s back in the van on comms, watching their local surveillance feeds. John says one of the best things that happened to hunting was the digital camera. Vampires actually appear in digital images as themselves. Film cameras capture them as they truly are. Showing their real age, or in some cases only a skeleton. Robin remembers the vampire informant they meet with who buys cheap film cameras and takes pictures of himself because he wants to feel human again.
Thinking of the photos the vamp had in his pocket along with his little black book reminds Robin of the one tucked in his. He fingers the worn paper, wondering how many times Adam touched it before heading out on a hunt.
A faint tapping above him catches his attention. He turns just in time to see Kira hop down from her perch with a gracefulness his own numb, cold-heavy limbs could definitely not replicate.
MOVEMENT IN THE SECOND ALLEY NORTH, she signs, and John nods and relays the information to Cody quietly. It’s no coincidence, Robin is sure, that that’s the one place they’re struggling to get video coverage.
Unfortunately, it’s a false alarm. Just a local shop owner a shortcut on his way home. Which means it’s back to their posts.
Robin tries not to lean on the cold brick wall, it feels like it’s sucking the warmth out of his body. He takes slow breaths, hoping no one can hear over comms that they’re shaky. He’s good at keeping his teeth from chattering, but the shaky breaths he can’t help. His cheeks feel wind-bitten and his toes are cold.
John turns and glances at him when he raises his hands to blow on his fingers, and Robin quickly tucks them back in his pockets.
“Are you cold?” John asks.
“I’m fine.” It comes out too fast, too desperate, a conditioned response to being asked that many times before and not liking the results of total honesty.
“Oh really? That why you’re shakin’?” John asks. “You coulda said you were getting too cold. You can wait in the van…”
“I’m useless in the van,” Robin says. “By the time I get out the door you guys will be where you need to be.”
He’s cut off by the knocking sound again, as well as Cody whispering over comms. “There’s movement northeast of your position. Hard to get a clear visual.”
Kira scrambles down from her perch again, and they head toward the source of the movement.
This time, it’s not a false alarm. Fortunately, the vamp is easy to bring down. He’s the kind of predator who likes laying in wait and getting the drop on victims, and in a full-on fight he surrenders almost immediately.
The adrenaline of the arrest pushes the cold aside temporarily, but by the time they’re heading back to the agency with the vamp in the secure section of the van, Robin is feeling the chill again. The van is warm enough, but even so, he feels like he’ll never really get warm again, the damp chill like fangs sinking into his bones. He tries not to think about Arion or that cell.
He startles when someone spreads something over his lap. John is looking at him with concern, his own jacket off, that’s what Robin felt. And from her seat, Kira is digging through the emergency kit to pull out one of the brown shock blankets. The ones they carry are different from everyone else’s; wool is more effective for Robin than the reflective insulating material in the regular type. They have a couple of those as well, since the rest of his team is human, but Robin feels a little warmer just at the thought that his specific needs have been considered.
Robin wants to insist he doesn’t need it, but John is already wrapping him in the blanket the best he can while Robin is huddled in his seat, and it’s not worth the effort to try and figure out a way around the painfully obvious truth.
“Next time, tell us if you’re not okay, alright?” John asks. “We’re not gonna make you stand out there and freeze to death.”
“I should be fine. You and Kira were alright.”
“That’s not a good enough reason. If anyone told you it was, then they better answer to me.” John frowns. “We don’t all handle things the same. And we don’t have to. You don’t see me scaling walls like Spider-woman over there.” He puts a hand on Robin’s shoulder and Robin could swear he can feel the warmth through the blanket, his jacket, and his shirt. “You don’t have to be okay just because someone else is.”
Robin nods shakily. It’s going to take time to undo the things Michaels and the Silver Blade team beat into him, literally and figuratively. The constant reminders that he wasn’t allowed to struggle because none of the rest of them were, so he’d better suck it up and stop acting like an entitled brat.
But they’ll get there. And he knows it.