Disclaimer: I don't own Teen Titans. They are the property of DC Comics and Cartoon Network.
: Afternoon : Cyborg :
Rae cornered him in the kitchen, drinking orange juice like he always did at precisely 3:15 p.m. The time was 3:36:02, though. "You're different."
He nearly choked on his glass of vitamin c. I snorted, then ducked behind the couch. Our leader spilling o.j. down his shirt in surprise was a sight to be treasured, and secretly stored on disk for future blackmail. Fortunately for me, his hacking and sputtering covered both my laugh and the whir of the tower's surveillance camera as I had it transmit the past few seconds of footage to my computer.
"B-beg your pardon?"
"You're different, Robin."
He wriggled his eyebrows suggestively and smirked at her--"Well, they do call me Boy Wonder"--as he put the carton back in the fridge. I nearly groaned. Goth girl wanted to, as well--I saw her eyebrow twitch in a way it often did in BB's presence. But leader boy's cockiness easily slid into gentle and genuine interest. He pulled out a stool for her, dragged his own seat alongside hers, and cocked his head slightly toward Raven. "Different how?"
She ran a hand through amethyst locks. "Still. You're still now."
"And here I thought I was a pretty active guy," he smiled. Funny how Robin can push her buttons like that when she would have thrown the green bean out a window by now.
"Still inside. Enough to tease instead of brood." She looked the young man beside her up and down and with utmost seriousness asked, "You're not turning into Beast Boy, are you?"
He burst out laughing--I barely contained my own--at which his companion scowled fiercely and pressed on, an almost desperate edge to her usual monotone: "You don't pace. You don't toss. You don't turn. You don't scream in the night anymore. You're different. You're still. You're not making this easy."
"Change never is." His hand reached out to hers where it was resting on the countertop. His ungloved fingers brushed hers for just a second before she jerked them away. His lips quirked in a flash of combined hurt and understanding and hope. He quickly downed the remainder of his juice, hopped off his stool, and made his way toward the door.
Behind his back, Rae turned her hand over to stare at the spot where their fingers had touched.
Just before exiting, Robin turned, caught her eye, and offered, "You're right. If you need that: a refuge, a... stillness... in the night, you can come to me. We can change."
For a moment after he left, she just stood there. "Change..." And she phased through the floor, leaving me blissfully unpunished for my inadvertent eavesdropping.