While this is mainly a slightly AU Raven origin story, it is also a Raven/Robin romance.

I hope everyone enjoys!

Chapter 1

She considered it to be her earliest memory of him, though it wasn't exactly… He had not been present at the time, and he was merely the focus of a conversation between her mother and her teacher. The purpose of the conversation was to address the repercussions of an incident that had involved both him and her, an incident during which she had been too young to later recall. But it was the nature of the word "incident" and all its messiness that drove Azar and Arella, those closest to Raven, to discuss it secretly within the confines of Azar's private study, and in nervously hushed voices. Incidents so rarely occurred in the utopic dimension of Azarath, and they hadn't occurred at all before she had been born, the young girl knew, that discretion was key when dealing in unsightly affairs. That evening, it was the strain that had been noticeably building in her mother's ever-grieving eyes throughout the course of the week that drove young Raven to investigate Arella's mysterious departure from their quarters.

Raven kept a fair distance, recognizing their destination for what it was a handful of corridor selections into the jaunt, for she traversed them everyday for lessons. Raven never missed a lesson, not a one, even if she was ill and had to be carried. It was imperative that she meditate, draw within herself, imperative that she prevent the prophesized inevitable. Raven often wondered with morbid logic if the day she could not possibly prevent, the horror unleashed that her mother had repeatedly forbade her to speak of, would come no matter the whiteness of her cloak nor the placidity of her manner, why couldn't she sleep in just once? The Prophesy ruled her every day. She imagined it written somewhere, as if in a book, its permanence incapable of being soaked clean of the parchment. She had spilled ink many a time and had not once succeeded in bleeding the page completely free of it. It always left a stain, even if it was merely a tauntingly miniscule one, and she imagined the drop falling far beyond the width of the page, deep into her soul and further marring her chances at correcting the disaster that was her birth.

The sound of her bare feet padding along the cold stones of the flooring sounded far louder to Raven's ears than she would've liked, as did the beating of her heart as she sidled up to the ornately crafted door to her teacher's study. She had waited until her mother had disappeared within and showed no signs of reemerging before she stepped out from behind one of many temple columns. She moved with a nervous but practiced ease and winced at the truth that this was not her first time eavesdropping. Azar's study door silenced all voices within, but Raven stepped knowingly up to a book shelf leaning against the door's right shoulder. With quickened breath and shaking fingers, she meticulously removed a book on her eye level, its lack of spouting dust a sure sign that it had not gone years untouched like its fellows.

Revealed in the empty space was a crack. Once, a steel bolt had been forced through the shelf and into the thick plaster of the wall to hold its frame in place. The wood had splintered slightly, and the plaster had cracked all the way through to the other side where, Raven knew from prior inspection, its opening was obscured by a thin tapestry. Placing her ear up against the hole, or, rather, a few inches from it, for her head could not squeeze completely into the space, she could hear the conversation. The Listening Shelf, or so she liked to fancifully call it, was her guiltiest secret. It was her only secret, the only one she allowed herself when the universe's survival rested on the purity of her soul.

She heard her teacher's bristly, wise voice that she had so often tried to imitate through the sheerness of the tapestry.

"… Albeit Juris' betrayal was regrettable, but I assure you; there is not yet any cause to worry the matter any further." Raven blinked at the name. Juris… she hadn't heard it before. But the fact that she hadn't gave it an aura of exodus, as if it would've been a common name if there was not some reason for it to not be spoken.

"Not to worry?" Arella spoke in a tone more exclamatory than questioning, which surprised Raven. Her mother had always seemed to take the teachings of Passiveness more seriously than some of the monks, and rarely expressed any form of emotion, even to Raven. "The boy has shown signs of empathy deeper than what is taught here! His vision bridges, uncontrolled, into Limbo from time to time and you know the source of this sudden increase in talent."

"Yes, of course. But if it was not for him, Juris would have surely succeeded in casting her into Limbo. Would you have her dead rather than have to worry for them both?"

"Of course not! You know I would rather be killed myself than… even if it means the Prophesy…" There was a silence up until her mother sighed and continued in a weary voice, weary for so many reasons. "Let's not have this talk again. We met here to discuss the boy's future."

"It will continue as planned. He has been in training since birth to become one of the priests who guard the gates of this dimension. I have no proof that he is unworthy to be part of the upcoming generation dedicated to this cause. In fact, under the circumstances, it seems the most appropriate place for him."

"His soul could be marred by Trigon!" Arella exclaimed, exasperated. Raven brought a hand up to her own mouth to stifle her gasp of surprise. Could it be… another…like her? She felt her pounding heart still a little at the unruffled, calming tone of her mentor's response.

"We cannot be certain that that is, indeed, the case. All we are certain of is that a young boy slipped away from his mentor at the dimensional gates. He then proceeded to make either a very courageous or a very foolish attempt to prevent a frightening individual from casting an infant into Limbo. Yes, we can assume that he and Raven imprinted upon each other, for such a thing occurs even between normal humans who save the lives of one another, but we cannot condemn the boy on the possibility that Raven seeped a part of her father into him." There was a pause during which Raven could almost see Azar tilt her head to one side, a sure sign she was about to deliver a staggering question. "Do you fear that part of your daughter so?"

"I fear, yes. I fear very much, but for her, not for myself. There is nothing that could happen to me that I have not brought upon myself with my own foolishness."

"Then let us not be hasty and foolish. We will keep a close watch on the boy. And it is my intention that he and Raven will meet."

"Why is that?"

"He is nearing fifteen years of age and will soon be a full Guardian. I may decide to let Raven see more of the city if she had someone to watch over her."

"I do not feel comfortable with someone so young"-Arella began quickly, but Azar cut her off with a small, knowing chuckle whose source Raven didn't understand.

"He is a full ten years her senior. And, as I keep assuring you, you need not worry with this one. You, most of all, need not worry."

"And how can you be so certain?"

"Because the thing you fear losing the most is Raven, her good side. And even if this boy has been tainted by Trigon, he is incapable of hurting her. They're soulmates: they have a bond…"

Raven opened her eyes, forcing her unconscious mind to return to the present, to Titans Tower. The memory was one she had visited many times upon coming to Earth, but it had always been decorated nightmarishly by her father's cruel face and taunting laughter; it had been that way with all her fond memories of Azarath when they visited her in her dreams. It was her first dream since his defeat –which had brought with it a blissful period of nights which she slept through without torment- and she felt relieved that his face hadn't haunted her throughout it. Azar had once told her the past could not be let go in favor of the future, for each led the other through existence. It was a statement she had once feared desperately, but now it held a new light. Perhaps what was once good in her life, that Trigon had destroyed, could be regained, in some way? Raven never polished the outlook of pain. Life was what it was, and Azar and her mother were dead no matter how many times she closed her eyes and wished otherwise. So Raven never wished. But the thought that maybe the Teachings of Azar would someday resume was an innovative one that she wasn't afraid to mull over realistically.

Raven turned her head so that it would be on the cool side of her pillow, and realized that her head rested on a book. She had fallen asleep on her floor about mid-afternoon and it was nearing ten o'clock according to her communicator. The others would be breaking down her door soon so that she could cast her vote in a ridiculous and useless dinner poll (the ultimate decision was always a compromise reached by Robin and never involved any of the original, and bizarre, choices), for she had told them hours ago that she was reorganizing her books and would've been done if she hadn't fallen asleep. She supposed it was the darkness contrasting the ever-present candle glow in her room that put her to sleep. And she supposed it was the presence of the towering, haphazard stacks of books that had spurred the dream.

She transferred the book that had serviced as a pillow to her lap. Looking down at its cover, her heart thudded as it always did when her finger tips brushed the frayed fibers of its spine. It was the book, the one that had kept watch over her forbidden connection to the study. She had always held it in her arms while she listened, unable to set it on the ground out of loyalty; loyalty for the way it never gave away her secret by falling from the shelf or tilting awkwardly in its slot. One of the things Raven was pained to admit about herself was the way she personified books. It was ludicrous, but she liked to believe that this little book held some essence of life in it, her life. In a wild moment, she had decided to take it with her when she had run away to Earth, and now it was all that remained of the destroyed Azarath. Ironically, she couldn't even read the language on its pages.

She shivered slightly even though her room was a little warmer than she would've liked. There was one aspect of the dream that bothered her. It disturbed her almost as much as seeing a demon's face would have, but the feeling of unease was spurred by guilt, not fear. She had almost forgotten him, he who was most important, most loyal… There was a time when she had thought of him every day, nearly every hour, but she had gone almost a traitorous year without thinking of him. In her desperate dread of the future, she had nearly let him fade away with the unreality that was her past.

I was young; she tried to sooth herself before slapping the thought away. Raven hated the thought of hiding from what was, what was written. She had defied her father and crossed out the pain he had caused her, rewriting her story, but the scars of the original tale were still there. They could still be seen, even if they weren't meant to be read. And she had almost, horribly, cast aside all the pages of her life pertaining to…

She gasped, her hands gripping the book more fiercely. She couldn't remember his name! All Guardians swore off individuality and defining attributes, including names, as part of the life path that they chose, but he had told her his name once in secret. He had told her only once, and it was not permitted that she ever say it aloud –he had taken a great risk divulging it- but she had said it to herself in her head every day afterward so as to not forget. Sometimes, when she was supposed to be meditating and chanting the sacred spell of Azar, she had repeated his name in her head, loving its mystic tone, the way it fit him and brought him to life. She had also, greedily, loved the way knowing his name seemed to make him hers. If she had understood empathic bonds between minds at the time, she would've known that she possessed him in a far deeper way, but she was a young girl. It had pleased her just to walk the street and point out a random person, thinking, 'They don't know… Only I…Only I…'

A harsh knocking on her door startled her, and the resulting glitch in her powers shattered a light bulb.

"Great," she muttered. She took a deep breath, immediately regaining control, and she stood to greet her friends. She sighed as she came to the door, wanting to pursue the troubled memories further, but deciding that it could wait in favor of keeping people from beating her door down. Raven didn't reach out with her powers to see who it was; if that wasn't Cyborg and Beast Boy, she would willingly paint her fingernails chartreuse.

"What?" she deadpanned as she cracked open the door seven inches, a charitably friendly three inches more than she would've normally been comfortable with. She'd tried to mellow out slightly, but living in the present was infinitely more difficult than dwelling in the past or obsessing over the future. But this was now, and these were her friends, even if they were excessively loud and annoying at times…

"It's dinnertime," Cyborg offered, grinning. "Time to pick your poison. We've got three options by three different titans."

"I know you want to have some of my waffles, Raven," Beast Boy cooed, wiggling his eyebrows. Raven rolled her eyes, not yet leaving the interior of her room. She didn't like tofu, and she wasn't quite sure why everyone thought she had an unhealthy fixation with waffles…

"Doesn't Robin normally make you guys agree on something so we don't have a bunch of blue leftovers blue in the fridge?" she asked, the thought suddenly occurring to her. To her surprise, the grin on Cyborg's face was exchanged for a fairly subdued expression.

"He's not feeling great," he informed her. "He was complaining that his head hurt a bit, and if Robin's complaining then it must've been pretty bad." Raven had to agree with that. He'd once taken a near-fatal blow to the stomach by a steel girder, marksmanship courtesy of Cinderblock, and the last thing he'd said before he'd passed out was to ask Cyborg to give him a hand to his feet.

"Well, he must be fine now," she said. Cyborg gave her a questioning look, so she explained. "I can usually feel his pain or distress without having to reach out, and I can't sense anything off at the moment." She was able to sense the pain emanating from anyone, but she and Robin had a particular bond… She thought the word always seemed to strike an ominous chord.

Cyborg seemed partially satisfied with that. "Well, I'm gonna check on him, anyway," he said, shrugging and departing. That left Raven to grudgingly make the long trek to the control room alongside Beast Boy's constant chatter.

To her great relief, upon reaching the main room, he was able to direct it at Starfire. While the three of them waited for Cyborg to return, Raven faded in and out of listening to a rapid-fire conversation between the other two that made limited sense. She caught topics such as Klondike bars, the World News, and Control Freak, but she hoped none of the three really had anything in common. It was only a minute before Cyborg burst into the room, looking panicked.

She was immediately on her feet. "What's wrong?" she asked. Beast Boy and Starfire fell silent.

"Robin's not in his room." At that, Starfire was on her feet as well. Beast Boy remained sitting, not finding any reason yet to worry.

"He's probably just vaulting some rooftops, you know: normal human stuff." At Cyborg's next sentence, though, he paled to a softer shade of green.

"There's blood on his floor. Robin's blood."