A/N: Hey guys! So, if you've read anything else by me, you're probably wondering what on earth I'm doing writing this. Well, I have an awesome friend, Necronom Hezberek Mortix, who is really the reason I was interested in Teen Titans again in the first place, and the reason I write here on . And I'm letting them win our argument (for now), and dedicating this story to them. So please don't be too hard on me, because not only have I never written a RaeRob pairing, I also don't exactly support it in the first place. Hope you like it!
- Vanessa
I stood, staring up at Titan Tower through the darkness. I glanced at the door one more time, before pulling my grappling hook from my belt and using it to swoop up the sleek gray sides, finally settling softly on the roof. I settled myself against one of the poles supporting the volleyball net, staring out at the lights of Jump City. My city.
The lights conflict dramatically with the pitch black sky, preventing me from seeing the stars. There might have been a time when this would bother me, but now I'm perfectly content to sit and watch the city be peaceful, even if the peace can only be obtained at whatever hour of the morning this was.
For the umpteenth time since I'd gone out on patrol, I considered going back into the tower. However, I shook that thought once more, wanting to enjoy my peace. It wasn't that I didn't like my teammates. They were my best friends. However, there were times when I just needed to be alone. They didn't understand this part of me, the near nocturnal part I'd developed over the past seven years. Sometimes I just needed to be serious, somber…calm. But if I tried it down in the tower, Cyborg would worry something was wrong, Beastboy would make some joke about me acting like Raven, and Starfire would just get happier to try to make up for it.
I heard movement behind me. I didn't have to look to know who it was, because there was only one person who'd think to look for me up here.
"Hey Raven," I offered. She stopped about a foot behind me.
"Hello," she replied. I didn't continue the conversation, and she didn't make any sign that she wanted me to. Her presence was comforting, but not overbearing, allowing me to be alone, but not lonely as I continued to watch the skyline. After a few more minutes, I turned to look at her.
She was hovering behind me, her legs crossed and her eyes closed. I started to turn back to face the city, not wanting to disturb her meditation, but she opened her eyes to look at me.
"Why aren't you sleeping?" I asked. I may not have known what time it was, but it was at least one in the morning, if not later. She shrugged, maintaining her usual neutral expression.
"Meditation's more calming." I nodded, my curiosity appeased, and started to turn back to the skyline.
"Why are you out here?" Her question surprised me. Raven usually didn't bother asking questions, happier with as little interaction as possible. But it didn't annoy me as it might have had someone else asked.
"The night's peaceful," I answered. She accepted me answer, knowing better than to try to pry into my mind, probably because she already understood me better than I did sometimes. She could accept that the guy who dressed like a traffic light, and enjoyed playing videogames, eating pizza, and making bad puns on occasion, could also enjoy melting into the shadows, be highly sardonic, and just like being left alone to his thoughts.
"It's because Beastboy's sleeping." I snorted, a smile creeping across my face. If you didn't know Raven, you probably wouldn't have believed she'd just made that joke. But there was just the slightest glint in her eyes.
"You don't know what time it is?" I asked, knowing not to push her with more humor. She shrugged again.
"Night." I nodded; I guess we both didn't really need anything more specific. She shifted ever so slightly, but kept her position with her legs crossed.
"Why do you do that?" I asked, not really sure what made me. She raised one eyebrow, so I elaborated. "Isn't sitting like that uncomfortable?"
"Not really," she replied, but she uncrossed her legs moved so she was leaning against the pole next to me. "No less comfortable than this."
"It's not so bad," I countered. Perhaps it was just another thing I'd picked up my seven years as a hero, but I didn't really get uncomfortable anymore. I'd spent too many nights being lucky to have passed out in a chair, not just on the floor.
"From your perspective," Raven ended decisively. I think we both knew I wouldn't press the issue, because I didn't really didn't care. However, Raven didn't move to return to her earlier position, so I felt as though I may have ultimately won the argument, if you could even call it that. We settled back into comfortable silence.
"Robin?" Raven asked after a few more minutes. I turn my gaze back to her. "Why do you do it?" I don't have to ask what she means. I was an anomaly. Cyborg, Beastboy, Raven, Starfire, they all had some power that made them exceptional, something that drove them. I was just a normal guy, nothing special about me, except for once being a professional acrobat of course. But they didn't know that.
Normally, I'd answer cryptically, because that's what we did. That was our great power. We were anomalies. But that didn't seem fair to Raven. I knew things about her past that she would have probably rather never told anyone. The least I could do was be honest.
"My…my parents were murdered," I admitted, barely audibly. I felt her tense beside me.
"I'm sorry," she offered. Normally, I would have just rolled my eyes at that. Being sorry didn't really help anything. But Raven didn't say she was sorry much, if at all. However, what really got me was the look of sympathy on her face. I just knew she actually understood exactly how I felt about it. I smiled at her, and received something even rarer: I got a momentary smile in return.
She could clearly sense that I didn't really want to talk about it, so we settled back into silence again. I allowed my thoughts to drift as I vaguely watched the shifting lights. As she leaned into my side, I began thinking about how similar Raven and I really were. In a way, we were two halves of the same person. We had a dark and a light side, but I had more of the light, and she had more of the dark. But we both had the other side too. Raven could be very funny when she wanted to be, and I'd proven more times than I'd like to count that I was capable of being just as brooding, if not more so. I wondered if Raven sometimes felt like she was two separate people too.
"Raven?" I asked softly, turning to face her, only to discover that she was asleep, her head leaning against my shoulder. I smiled at how peaceful she looked. Then she frowned ever so slightly and shivered. I realized for the first time that it must be pretty cold up here. I didn't really get cold anymore, after being frozen a couple times, plus my cape kept me warm.
I decided I didn't want to wake her up, so I shifted my arm carefully out from between the two of us, wrapping it around her shoulders and draping my cape around both of us. I closed my eyes, figuring I should probably get some sleep too. My last thought before drifting out of consciousness was that this was certainly the most comfortable position to sit in.