A/N: This fic was inspired by how much I miss my art class. Art just didn't fit into my schedule this year, which pisses me off A LOT. So all the stuff about Raven drawing is based on my brilliant (nag) art teacher- although the actual art teacher at the end is based on my friend Cassidy. The rest is just my love of RaexRob (though I do like others with Raven). ENJOY :)
Disclaimer: The Teen Titans belong to DC and WB.
Oh, I don't explain why there's no RobxStar anything in the story so here's why: I hate that pairing. So for the purpose of my happiness, I've ignored the existence of it entirely. If you like that couple, sorry, I disagree, and you can flame me if you want. I won't get mad, promise. On with the story.
Raven walked into the common room of Titans Tower, carrying a large leather-bound sketchbook behind her back. Looking around the room, she was relieved to find Robin in the kitchen pouring himself a glass of water while the others sat on the couch, Starfire watching Cyborg beat Beast Boy in a racing game. She approached her leader, her nervousness not showing except in her speed. Her pace slowed the closer she got to him. He took a sip from his glass before turning and greeting her.
"Hey Raven, what's up?" He smiled at her. He knew she never approached anyone without reason- never just stopped for a chat- so he was curious.
She looked him in the eye with her usual emotionless expression. "Can I talk to you for a minute?"
He smirked. "We're already talking, Rae."
She rolled her eyes, though really grateful, since his normal attitude was making her relax in what she felt was an awkward situation. "I meant away from those three."
Curiosity manifesting in a raised eyebrow, he shrugged, nodded, and led them out the main door and into the hallway. Once the door shut he asked, "So what d'ya need?"
Raven repressed a blush at the thought of how odd her request would sound. She would only get annoyed with herself if she blushed, and that would make the whole situation harder. Still, it was her only option, so she plowed on through. "I've been taking an art class at the local community college. Since-"
Robin interrupted, "So is that where you go in civilian clothes every other weeknight? Beast Boy thought you were dating someone, but I figured it had to be some sort of group or class since it was so consistent. I just never pinned you as an artist."
"I appreciate many forms of emotional expression that don't cause my powers to break things, including art. But why would Beast Boy think I was dating someone? I thought he considered me asexual." Robin could hear just a slight twinge of annoyance in her tone from being interrupted. He still answered her question.
"Actually Beast Boy kind of has a crush on you, and even if you weren't dating someone he felt jealous that you were paying attention to someone else regardless of who they were. So no, he most certainly does not consider you asexual."
Raven was silent a moment while she digested the new information. She wondered at how her empathic abilities had failed to detect this, but then realized that they probably had and she had just ignored it, much as she often ignored Beast Boy. His infatuation with her, which had disappeared with the appearance of Terra only to return full force as he healed from his heartbreak, seemed to be like that of a cat that approaches its master when ignored, but then walks away when petted- after she constantly rebuffed him he found her attention the more desirable. How childish.
Moving past thoughts of Beast Boy, she returned her calm gaze to Robin. "Well, as I was saying, I'm taking a Drawing and Painting class, and I have to do a sketch of a friend before my class tomorrow night. So I was hoping you would model for me."
Robin blinked once. Then twice. The way she said it was like she was asking him to pass the salt. It was just such an odd request coming from Raven. She usually stayed in her room alone, now she was asking to basically stare at him for long periods of time and draw him. That seemed rather intimate.
He grinned. "I'd love to."
Her eyes widened very slightly in surprise. She had expected him, if he would even consider it, to at least ask how long it would take or how much of him she would be drawing. The lack of hesitation threw her off. "Well, thank you. It's only from the shoulders up, and the initial sketch should only take me half an hour at most."
He cocked his head, "Initial sketch?"
She looked down at her boots but no blood reached her cheeks by force of sheer will. "Yes, well the purpose of the sketch is to prepare for a painting. So if you're okay with it, you'll have to sit for me a few times."
He nodded, "Sure. I'd love to help you, plus I'd never get to see your art otherwise."
She looked up to stare him dead in the eye and deadpanned, "What makes you think you'll get to see it?"
Robin's grin faded as he implored, "Aw, c'mon Rae, I should get to see your work if I'm the subject!"
He watched her mouth as it twitched into a smirk. "Only if you're a good model and do as I say."
He smirked back. Kinky. "Of course. So when and where are we doing this?"
She thought for a moment and said, "I suppose we should start now, just in case some villains decide to make nuisances of themselves tomorrow. And I need a single light source, which the windows would mess up, so I guess we could do it in my room and I could use a lamp." By the end she was mostly mumbling in consideration to herself, looking somewhere above his head.
He waited until he thought she was finished speaking. Then he shrugged, said, "Okay," and started walking toward her bedroom. She trained her eyes back on him as he moved, and, realizing his intentions, followed him.
Catching up and reaching her door, she punched in her code before he could use his code to override it- which he had for all the rooms, being the leader.
She entered her room and ignored him as he followed her. She tensed very slightly when she felt him cross the threshold, a clear indication that people didn't usually come in her room. She busied herself with pulling out a chair for him and finding her pencil case where she kept her supplies. She didn't really need to search since it was right on her shelf where she'd left it, but she wanted to keep busy. Robin could tell.
"Are you sure you want to do this here, Rae? We could find somewhere else to do this if you're uncomfortable having me in your room."
Raven looked up, eyes opened a little wider in surprise at his perception. His understanding made her relax considerably. "No, it's fine, really. This will be the most comfortable, and none of the others will accidentally walk in."
Nodding and settling down on the chair she'd offered, he watched her set up the lamp in the position she wanted, sit on her bed and open to a clean page of her sketchbook. To his surprise, most of it was already full of sketches, designs, plans. There were some photographs slipped between pages, probably for study. He tried to get a good look at the drawings, any inside clue to her mysterious personality, and she made no effort to hide them. He watched the pages flip by and was faced again and again by scenes of the Titans. Grouping of them on the couch, mostly. Some of Cyborg working on the T-car, some of Star making some sort of pudding, Beast Boy watching television, and himself he saw working at a desk. They were simple sketches, quickly done while they wouldn't notice her drawing them, but they were unmistakably talented renditions of the team. Robin smiled; no matter how she hid it she did care about them as they cared about her.
She quickly reached a fresh page and looked down at it. She looked up at Robin and he stared back. She looked at the paper and him repeatedly, envisioning his portrait on the page. She squinted at him a moment and suddenly reached out her hand and grabbed his chin. Her hold was gentle, but his breath caught at her touch. She moved his chin a in a few different positions before deciding on one and commanding him to stay still.
She set off to work immediately. She began with the outline of his neck, but she didn't really use an outline: she shaded a black background where his neck ended and empty space began. She proceeded to define every shadow and muscle of his neck with honest, but not overdone, detail. This was, after all, just a first draft sketch so she didn't need to make anything perfect.
It surprised him how much of the time she was staring at him. She hardly seemed to look at the page, just him. She glanced down occasionally, but found not gross errors, because she somehow managed to draw accurately without watching where she put her pencil. He was glad she started with his neck. He wasn't sure he could handle her staring him right in the face with that steady gaze of hers. She didn't even seem to look at him a person, just an object to be drawn. It was almost disappointing. He had held a secret hope that she would find him attractive while drawing him as he found her every time she entered his sight.
Raven had, when she first started drawing him, found it hard to fight down a blush. But that all slipped away as she concentrated on the planes of his skin, the shadows that his muscles cast, the frame of his bones in his shoulders and jaw. They became less a part of Robin, and more light opposing dark that she transferred to her page. She remained in a trance like that, drawing his jaw with precision, his cheekbones, his hairline and his hair, his ears, his nose, his mouth. She drew everything she could until her pencil finally stopped and her eyes actually saw Robin for the first time in over twenty minutes. She looked at the white covering in her way, trying to read his eyes as she brought up the subject she'd been avoiding the entire time, the subject that she knew might ruin the whole setup: his mask.
"Robin..."
"Are you done?" He asked, moving for the first time since she'd moved him- he had to thank the Bat for teaching him the stealth skill of staying immobile, or else he would have been very uncomfortable during that time. "That was fast."
She continued looking at where his eyes should have been. "I'm not done. Actually, I just have one thing left to do. Your eyes."
He understood immediately. "Oh, wow, how could I not think of that?"
Raven hesitated. She looked nervous as she stood up and approached him, setting her sketchbook and pencil on the bed. "Robin, would you mind if I...?" She let the question hang in the air. He didn't move, and she could feel the tension between them.
She slowly raised her hands to the edges of his mask. He made no move to stop her, merely looked up into her eyes as she slowly began pulling off his mask. Her breath quickened as more of the adhesive-held domino peeled off of his face. The air kept getting thicker.
The mask was finally detached from his face, but Raven's hands shook as she began to move it from in front of his face so she could finally see him. She did it slowly, with long breaths that didn't work to calm her down. He still didn't move from his position, gazing at her.
The first thing she saw was blue: the most gorgeous blue she'd ever seen. Blue was her favorite color, but not the midnight blue everyone thought it was; her favorite shade was the color of the Mediterranean Sea- a deep cerulean that seemed to touch her soul the one time she had stood on its shores. That was the exact color of Robin's eyes. But somehow it held more- the emotions in them made the blue sparkle in mysterious ways that wanted to draw her into him. Framed by long black lashes, almond shaped, capped with straight black brows, he had the most beautiful eyes she'd ever met.
Her heart, which had stopped at the sight, stuttered back into a quick beat.
Her hands dropped the mask, regardless of where it would land, and rested on either side of his face, exploring the face she'd been staring at without seeing and all the parts that had been hidden from her for far too long.
His heart soared as she finally saw him for who he was, as he heard her heart stutter and speed up, as he felt her soft, delicate hands on his face.
His hands reached out to her and held her at the waist, surprising, confusing, and exciting her. He stood up, and she had to look up at him. His hands stayed on her waist, and hers stayed on his face. They both had the same longing in their eyes.
They moved at the same time. His hands gently pulled her body against his while hers pulled his face down to her level. They reached a moment of emotional clarity as their lips touched. Their first kiss was very sweet, innocent, a mere touch of the lips, especially when compared to the real desires of both parties. When the pulled back and looked in each others' eyes, nothing else had to be said- they just knew. They leaned together again.
The second kiss was more forceful, passionate, and desperate. Robin held Raven's body full against his, reveling in the way her curves fit along his lean muscles. His lips pressed hard against hers like he hoped to absorb her into his skin. As one of his hands moved to curve around her hip and ass, she moaned into his mouth, allowing him to slip his tongue between her lips. She moaned again and he felt her slide her chest up his as she tried to get closer to him. This time he groaned. She smiled proudly at his reaction and pulled her head back. She noted with satisfaction and excitement that she had not made anything explode during their kiss.
She stared again into his eyes. "I thought I told you to be a good model."
He laughed. "I'm the best model you could ask for and you know it."
"Well, you were the best I could get on short notice."
He laughed again, his natural high incorrigible. "What, you considered using the other Titans?"
She shrugged, despite his still tight grip around her waist. "Yeah but none of them would have worked. I didn't want Beast Boy to know about the class because he would have been annoying about it; Starfire would have told him accidentally and never could have sat still; and Cyborg's face is half robotic, and the teacher obviously wanted a human face. Speaking of faces, sit back down, I need to draw your eyes."
He pouted, and she raised an eyebrow. Then, smirking, he leaned down to whisper seductively in her ear, "Only if you promise we will continue this," he slid his hand down her thigh, "once you're done."
She grinned equally seductively, "I promise."
The following night, the teacher, a young woman named Sara, checked that all the members of the small class had fulfilled the assignment. When the fresh-out-of-college instructor reached Raven, who she'd actually become comfortable with- through the power of art- over the past weeks, she looked at interest at the result of her study. Sara smiled in amusement.
"Raven, for some reason I remember asking for a drawing of a friend, not your lover."
Raven blushed. "How- how did you-?"
Laughing, Sara told her, "Honey, did you even pay attention to what you were drawing? There is so much desire in this boy's look it's about to burn the page off."
Despite her lingering blush, Raven defended herself, "Well, he wasn't my lover when I drew it."
Sara wiggled her eyebrows suggestively, "But he changed that right after you finished, didn't he?" Raven's face couldn't get any redder. An easel behind her was suddenly surrounded by Raven's black soul-self, but she quickly stopped her powers before it broke. It was a skill she had been trying to teach herself recently- to stop things from breaking even when her emotions made her powers lash out. That was the reason she hadn't broken the whole Tower apart last night.
Sara considered the picture of Robin for a moment before saying, "Honey, I cannot blame you at all. If he's even half as hot as you drew him, well hot damn you've got yourself a catch."
Raven groaned, "He's actually even hotter. And this drawing doesn't show his body..."
Sara's eyes and mouth opened wide with shocked mirth. "Who knew the dark Titan girl could be such a hound!"
This time Raven growled. "Just go teach the class."
Sara waved her hands in a placating manner, "Fine, fine. By-the-by, that boy will make a wonderful painting- that is, if you can both concentrate long enough to make it into a painting. I think you'll get distracted."
Raven's eyes got a dreamy cast over them, as if remembering something as she whispered to her friend, "I really hope so."
Author's Note 2: The return of DemolitionLvr:
Alright, the indications that they liked each other may have been a little too subtle, but they are both very subtle people. I won't point them all out to you, you'll find them if you paid attention. But here are some key words: relaxed, comfortable, intimate, and kinky. lol.
I'd just like to remind you really quickly about that REVIEW button right below. Please press it. If you're looking for another quick read, I published another Rae-Rob story the other day, called The Benefits To Friendly Scheming. I hope if you like this that you will read (and REVIEW!) that as well. Cheers
