Raven and Starfire shared the center of the bed––just as they had done so many times before.
It had all started some months ago, after the two of them had shared an... out–of–body experience of sorts. Actually, "out–of–their–own–body–and–into each–others" would be a more appropriate description. They'd learned to walk in each others' shoes, both literally and figuratively; and ever since then, they'd found a sort of understanding for one another, which had only grown with time after their shared ordeal was over.
The more Raven and Starfire understood each other, the closer they'd become.
The closer they'd become, the more they talked.
The more they talked, the more they found they had in common. These additional things could be counted on the fingers of one hand, but hey, they were still there.
And the more they found they had in common, the more they opted to do share those things together––and alone.
To that end, there would be more times over the past weeks when they'd shut themselves in either Starfire's (more often) or Raven's (much, much less often––in fact, never) room, where they could they easily spend time with each other with minimal danger of the world blowing up...
...except at times like this.
–––
"Risk and Reward"
A Teen Titans Fan Fiction by Speedy Midori
Original: August 2004
Revision: September 2011
All characters are copyrighted and owned wholly by DC and WB Animation.
No money has been made with this, and none is ever to.
–––
Focus.
Find your center.
The outside world is inconsequential. Embrace the nothingness. Become the nothingness. Live as the nothingness lives.
Concentrate, but do not think.
Raven closed her eyes, and chanted.
"Azarath... Metrion... Zinthos. Azarath... Me... tri... o..."
Wait.
Something wasn't right.
Raven opened her eyes, and groaned inwardly as her suspicions were confirmed.
Starfire was lying on her bed, on her back, looking right at Raven with the biggest grin in the universe.
In other words, she was doing it again.
Sigh.
"Hey, Starfire?"
Starfire's smile got even bigger––something Raven didn't think would have been possible without her lips extending past the boundaries of her face. Live and learn. "Yes, Raven?"
"You know how I'm always talking about 'finding my center' and everything?"
Starfire nodded energetically.
"Yeah. Well, it's kind of hard to do that when I can feel your smile boring into my skull."
Starfire's face fell. "...oh. I am sorry."
Raven sighed, and shook her head. "No, it's okay, I guess. But since you're not meditating like you said you were going to, I'm going to guess something's on your mind."
Starfire fidgeted, which Raven easily interpreted as the alien girl wanting to say something, but not quite knowing how to go about it. Deciding to help things along, Raven 'hmph'ed. "Hurry up. That stalling technique might work with Robin, but I'll actually lose interest before too long. Out with it."
"Well..."
Starfire parked herself front of Raven, sat on her heels, and levitated herself a tiny bit off of the bed so that they would be both facing and level with each other.
However, when Starfire placed her hands on Raven's shoulders, the sorceress instantly knew where this was all going.
Again.
"Raven..." said Starfire, "the only thing that is on my mind is you. Well, actually, you are really not a thing. You are a person. But all tangible objects could technically be classified as 'things', so I suppose..." Fear quickly flashed onto Starfire's face. "N–n–not that I consider you an object! Oh, please don't be angry at–"
Raven put a hand directly in front of Starfire's face. "Yeah, it's okay, I get it," she said, more impatience creeping into her voice. "Seriously. Stop worrying about it before I actually do get mad."
"...okay."
"And if you must know... you're often in my thoughts as well."
Raven retracted her hand and resumed her meditation position––slightly afloat above the bed as well, with legs bent and locked. "May I finish now?" she asked, simply because, she knew things would otherwise go down the path they always had been as of late.
She really didn't feel like explaining to Starfire yet again why they couldn't... couldn't... well...
"But, Raven..." Starfire began, just before...
"Ohh... mmm..."
There wasn't much Raven was going to get done while feeling such a warm hand caressing her neck like that... or seeing the soft, pleading expression in Starfire's green eyes. Honestly, that girl never took no for an answer––and it was one of the things Raven both hated and loved about her.
"Raven," said Starfire, "it will not be as bad as you think. I am very nearly one hundred percent completely sure of it! And we will never know if we do not try..."
That sentence.
Raven hated that sentence.
They were her personal famous last words. The words she'd often uttered to herself, just before many an innocent inanimate object met a grisly end. Just before people important to her got hurt. Just before she lost control due to having dealt with the physical, spiritual, or emotional unknown.
She wasn't about to listen to that sentence again. No matter how much she, in the deepest recesses of both her heart and mind, wished she could chance it, just this once.
It appeared she was going to have to handle this the hard way.
A flick of her finger, a spark of dark energy, was all it took to knock Starfire back on the mattress, flat on her back.
"Okay, Starfire, it's lesson time. And this will be the last time class will be in session."
"But..."
"My powers are controlled by emotion."
"I know, but..."
"That means that any unexpected surge in my feelings, no matter how great or small, is potentially a threat."
"Perhaps! However..."
"This does not discriminate against feelings of affection."
Starfire fell silent.
"So. The whole hugging deal you keep doing. In fact, all the touchy–feely stuff. Up until now I've been doing a pretty good job of staying calm, but I'm not perfect. If I were anyone else, this wouldn't be a problem. But I'm me. Therefore, I'm going to have to ask you, once and for all, to stop before I get angry."
A pitch–black aura surrounded Raven's body to accentuate, and continued to flare as Raven's voice began to rise, and she got right into Starfire's face.
"Do. I. Make. My. Self. Clear?"
–––
She most certainly had.
Starfire lay where she was, in despair. Raven would not budge. Raven would forever refuse her attempts at mutual happiness, for reasons that made more than enough sense.
It was hopeless.
She considered saying something else, but Raven was already reverting back to her meditative state, and without something short of an emergency, anything she said or did would just frustrate Raven even more, which she did not want to do right now. At the moment, Raven had reached the limit of her patience––no sense in pushing her to actual anger.
Wait... wait a second.
Just who was she to give up like this? Perhaps her friend was used to things not working out, but that just wasn't Starfire. Any problem could be solved, so long as one never stopped believing in their ability to solve it!
There had to be a way... a way for things to not matter... for Raven to be open and free if she wanted to... yes! Yes, there was!
Despair thus gave way to anger, then to righteous fury, and finally to ultimate determination!
Raven would see that she was wrong! And it would be glorious.
The Tamaranean's eyes glowed a familiar neon–green hue as she took action...
–––
"Azarath... Metrion... Zin––WHOA!"
That last had come from the shock of being almost torn from her sitting position. Before Raven could even register what was going on, she was being gripped tightly in Starfire's arms and carried, at top speed, through the bedroom, through the hallway, through the living room, past Robin and Beast Boy who were playing games on the TV, and finally through the front door of Titans Tower.
All of this happened in the space of 4.7 seconds, according to Cyborg's built–in timer.
–––
"...Star get mad at something again?" Beast Boy asked.
"Four–point–seven. Yeah, guess so," Cyborg replied. "Either that or she got another one of her good ideas."
"Dude, the last time Starfire got a 'good idea'," Beast Boy said, "she ended up making tofu–stuffed calamari for dinner."
Cyborg shuddered. "...yeah, good point. 'Specially since that wasn't actually calamari."
"...wait, it wasn't?"
"Let's hope she's just angry this time around. 'Cause we're out of antacid."
–––
"Let... me... go," Raven growled after finally regaining her bearings. By this time, Starfire was airlifting them both into the night sky, and they were already a few hundred feet up.
Starfire stayed silent, her gaze still fixed upwards.
"I said, let me go!" Raven said again, finally breaking Starfire's grip with a burst of darkness, and levitating. "What's the meaning of this?"
Starfire gestured around them. "Look where we are."
Raven looked around, and rolled her eyes. "Yeah. We're about seven hundred feet up." She wrapped her arms around herself, shivering a bit. "Do you know how cold it is at this height?"
"Yes, but look again. What do you see?"
Even as she wondered why she hadn't fastened Starfire's mouth shut and taken them both back to the Tower by now, Raven humored her friend. "I see you, and me... and a whole lot of nothing."
Starfire's triumphant smile could just barely be seen in the moonlight, yet she remained silent.
"What?" said Raven, her patience almost up. "What are you so happy about? There's. Nothing. Here."
"Exactly! Now you do not have to worry about breaking or destroying anything, or putting anyone in danger. Because there is nothing here."
Raven's annoyance dissipated as Starfire's words hit home. She looked around once more, seeing nothing but clouds, feeling nothing but cold night air. "Whoa. You're actually... wow, good point."
Wait.
She wasn't completely right.
"But you're still here," Raven said. "You're still at risk."
And there were those darned hands on her shoulders again. Odd how, even in the cold of the night, Raven's entire body was actually warming up to Starfire's touch.
Was she using her powers for this? Or...
"Earlier," said Starfire, "you accused me of not paying attention. Now it is my turn to say the same of you. Because, if you had been doing so all of these months, you would know by now that that is a risk that I am willing to take."
She felt Starfire pulling her close. Raven fought the fear, fought the nervousness, still tried pulling away. "No, I–I can't, I..."
But Starfire––curse her super–strength––would not let her go. Unable to fight it in the little time she was given, Raven was pulled closer and closer, until their bodies touched, and their faces were centimeters away from each other.
Starfire pulled her friend's hood back, revealing a beautiful gray face (one of these days, she was going to have to ask Raven how one managed such a complexion), and short, straight dark hair that matched the color of her eyes. For the life of her, she could never figure out why Raven would want to hide such appealing features.
For a moment Starfire considered removing the cloak altogether, but that might be too much. Best to get her comfortable first. One step at a time.
"Yes, you can, Raven. I trust you... and I believe in you."
Upon hearing those words, and seeing Starfire's face draw close, Raven was finally tired of running. She closed her eyes and let it happen, all in slow motion. For the longest time, she felt nothing but air; then she felt everything but.
Lips––soft lips––touched her own, and for a while she froze in place as she felt a soft hand running through her hair in a perfect moment.
Then the energy came, and Raven knew the acid test had begun.
She wanted so desperately to just let it all out, let it all fly, come what may, but she knew she couldn't. She instead pushed it in, her rapidly receding apprehension, her rapidly soaring happiness, her amazement, her wonder, and even a few slight tinges of paranoia.
Starfire's mouth opened just a bit, and Raven's followed in kind, and now it was almost too much... no, scratch that... it was too much...
Then she felt Starfire break away, hold her even closer, and nuzzle her cheek against Raven's.
I believe in you.
The words echoed in her mind. Or had Starfire whispered them again? Raven wasn't sure, but whatever the cause, she actually felt her power ebbing. She was relaxing... and realizing.
Being in Starfire's arms was... comforting. So comforting... enough for her powers to prove far less of a threat than usual. Raven had to admit, she had never considered an outcome such as this. The strain was lessening by the second.
Upon hearing a light giggle, Raven opened her eyes, just in time to see Starfire's smiling face heading towards hers once again, and to feel Starfire's lips touch hers once more.
This time, she felt nothing but elation––a light, heady happiness that, amazingly enough, didn't cause her powers to surge at all. Instead, everything simply... flowed. She was overcome by a sense of peace––one that she'd only approached in all her years of meditation.
Finally... finally... she could enjoy this.
Raven tentatively wrapped one arm around Starfire in kind, and leaned into the kiss that, up until now, she'd only been receiving as opposed to taking an active part in. The darkness––her darkness––engulfed both of them, so that, once it was all over, they were the only ones they could see in a world that consisted otherwise of... nothing. Nothing at all.
After an eternity, it ended, and she and Starfire floated idly in a slowly receding void. Soon the world as they knew it would be back among their surroundings; still, they had both now seen and understood the effects of their experiment.
"I knew you could do it," Starfire said softly.
Raven was silent for many moments. There weren't many times in her life where she was stricken absolutely speechless, but this moment could easily count for about five of them at once.
Finally, she spoke. "You know... I'm sort of surprised that Tamaraneans kiss too. Don't tell me there are some customs that reach across galaxies?" Raven asked, putting a finger to her lips.
"Oh, indeed," Starfire replied with a giggle. "In fact, on our planet, it is regularly practiced among very close female friends to join lips as a sign of their friendship. Which makes me very happy that this is the case right now, as there is much less pain involved."
"Pain?"
Starfire faltered. "Well, on my planet, a male and a female would celebrate their affections by... um... flying into each other headfirst at top speed."
Raven blanched. "...oh. I guess I should be glad about the circumstances, then. But..."
"Yes?"
Raven shivered with warmth. "Your... hand on my chest... do they do that on your planet, too?"
Starfire simply blushed. "Actually... that would just be me."
Darkness slowly engulfed the two heroines once again.
Neither of them minded––after all, it was free privacy.
–––
Hours Later...
This was odd.
Starfire was usually happy, but tonight she seemed a little too much so. Robin had just watched her float leisurely and erratically towards her room, humming a song, while barely missing bumping into about ten objects on her way there.
Raven walked in soon after. Perhaps she would know what was going on. "Hey, Raven. What's up with Starfire? Where'd you two go?"
Instead of getting an answer, however, Raven simply stopped where she was... and stared directly into Robin's eyes.
Wait, no––above his eyes.
"Uh... Raven?" Robin said, a little uneasy. "What's up? Something on my forehead?"
"...Robin?" Raven finally said.
"Yeah?"
"Um... invest in a helmet. As soon as possible."
Robin blinked. "Huh? Why–"
Raven walked to her room. "Don't ask. Just... trust me."