Level
A/N: So I really had the urge to write some RobXRae, but it's a really complicated pairing, if some of you might agree. Plus I like to keep things in character/running smoothly, etc. There might be a few side pairings/onesided pairings, but those are to be determined later.
I don't own anything.
"You're part of a TEAM Raven, so start acting like a member of it!"
"Well maybe you should stop acting like you are superior to everyone!"
"I LEAD this team! Are you forgetting?"
"Leading and dictating are two different things!"
"Who are you to call me a-" SLAM!
And she was gone.
Fifteen, twenty minutes later, the door remained the same. Shut. The fabric that shielded his eyes began to grow damp as his emotions bubbled over. He wasn't sobbing, but a tear or two did manage to escape the absorption of the fabric.
An hour later. Still shut.
"Um…Robin…" A cautious, soprano voice whispered from behind. It wasn't until that moment that Robin realized the remaining members of the Titans hadn't moved an inch since the abrupt end of the vicious banter. "Is she…coming back?"
Robin sucked in his breath. He didn't know the answer to Starfire's question. It was inevitable to probably everyone but her that he was just as unaware of the answer as anyone else. But the other mind boggling decision was how he chose to word his reply. He could try and convince her that Raven had no where else to go, and would therefore return. Or he could try and ration that it might be a while, but that Raven would come to her senses. "I don't know, Star."
The words tasted like poison as he spoke them. They had to be the most honest words he had spoken in a while. As hard as it was for Robin to give up a scheme, it was even harder for him to admit that he didn't know something.
Raven's departure had left him paralyzed. She had shot so many words at him that shattered like broken glass, only to leave a painful aftermath. She had berated how he treated her and Beast Boy as if they were lesser to his being, rather than the equality he often shared with Cyborg and Starfire. It had left him worn and confused at the anger that had seethed through her teeth as she verbally attacked him. Did she really feel that way? Did he really treat her as a lesser being? He tried to convince himself otherwise, he had been taught by the best after all, and it was hard for him to believe he had been taught any degree short of perfect.
To the other Titans, he appeared numb. Cold. One by one they all shuffled past his still being to respectfully leave him in his solitude. It only took five minutes of isolation before thoughts swirled around his head, and nerves tugged at the Boy Wonder, sending him bolting out of the common room, into the elevator. The thirty seconds it took for the doors to close, the 2nd flood button to be pushed, and the elevator to reach the floor seemed to take an eternity for him. His legs picked up speed as he leapt from the metal doors, sprinting down the hall. The metal on his shoes screeched as he stopped in front of a door. Her door.
"Rae." He muttered softly, pressing his forehead against the door. "Raven."
He didn't expect a reply, and he was fully aware that he wouldn't receive one. But that didn't stop him from muttering her name once more before he slid her door open. The sight shocked him. Although light had once been forbidden, it now filled every crevice, only accentuating the now barren, clear space that had once been Raven's room. The curtains had been hiked back to allow such a flood of light, provoking unease in the pit of Robin's stomach.
"Holy…where did all her stuff go?" A voice cracked. Robin whirled around, his eyes narrowing as Beast Boy stood behind him. Surely Beast Boy knew he wanted to be alone, but that never did seem to stop the curious Titan. At Robin's movement, Beast Boy squeezed himself past the door into the bright space, bumbling around in awe before he found himself in the center of the room.
"I don't know." Robin's reply was more of surrender, in the sense that he had lost one of few arguments concerning a Titan member. His head dropped and his hand rose to grasp the post of the door. "She probably took it to god knows where." And with those words, he left the room, leaving the green changeling to heave a small sigh in the empty space.
She wasn't stupid.
She knew her powers, her capabilities. She also knew about her pasty skin and purple hair. But Raven made sure she was always prepared. Arella had made sure of that as well. A well hidden secret, even more so than the one she had hid until her sixteenth birthday, was Raven's alias, her Earth form. She may have been able to get away with pasty skin and purple hair under the wing of Azar, or as a Teen Titan, but now that she had left the tower for the time being, she'd prefer not to attract attention until she chose to return as one.
Assuming a different appearance was simple for Raven, it was actually a spell she had put on herself upon arriving to Earth in order to retain the physical features she originally and traditionally bore in Azarath. The quick removal of the spell would ensure that she resume "Earth form" so the head monk had once called it.
Raven teleported herself into a gas station bathroom. Not her ideal location to remove anything, let alone a spell, but it would have to do. With the flick of her wrist, black magic engulfed the lock on the door, flipping it to "occupied". Raven pulled off her belt and cloak, opening a portal, shoving the items inside. She didn't need her locators giving her away. As the portal closed she raised her hands, black magic filling her fingertips.
"Carazon Rakashas Endere." The words just barely slipped off of her tongue, her eyes flashing white as dark magic swirled above her head, like a thin disk. The disk of magic dropped to the floor, engulfing her body to provoke the change. Raven's eyes shut as she felt her leotard dissipate with the magic, replacing the iconic outfit with a little more trendy attire. Once she felt the warm magic leave her body, her eyes snapped open. She flinched at the reflection in the mirror.
"Gross." She muttered, peering closer at herself. Her pasty grey skin had warmed up to an olive complexion, giving her the same dewy glow that she often scowled upon. Her violet hair had lengthened and thickened. The violet hue had darkened to a jet black, and although she retained the middle parting, the straight essence of her hair that she enjoyed maintaining had vanished, leaving wavy locks that reached just beyond her breast. The only change she didn't find distasteful was the change of her eyes. The violet had melted away to reveal light brown orbs. The fact that the color was so plain was almost a relief to her. She was also pleased to find that she kept her thick lashes, which had secretly been one of her favorite features of herself.
"Makeup? Seriously…" She grimaced at the dark smokey eye shadow and pigmented black cat liner that decorated her eyelids. Her finger flipped on the tap water and she cupped her hands, bringing the water up to her face to attempt to scrub off the makeup. She growled at the mirror when her efforts failed, upset that the feature was permanent. "It didn't even smudge."
She brought her hand up to feel the empty space on her forehead. Not seeing her gem was almost foreign, but then and again, so was her new physique. She straightened the oversized cream sweater that hung on her body and tugged at the black leggings that clung to her legs, leading down to the heeled boots that covered her feet.
"And heels." She looked up at the ceiling. "Great." She knew how to walk in heels just fine. She just hated it. She was, however, pleasantly surprised to find that they were rather comfortable once she took a few steps around the bathroom in it. She began to study her appearance in the mirror, now slightly entranced by the alter ego she had taken such measures to hide from the world.
Thud.
"Anyone in there? I really gotta use the john." A heavily accented southern female murmured from the other side of the door. Raven's head whirled towards the door. She scrunched up her nose a little as she realized she had to leave the bathroom soon and figure out accommodations for herself.
She moved briskly to the exit, flipping the lock and opening the door. "It's all yours." She muttered to the stout blonde woman, before brushing past her into the open minimart. She felt an awkward substance bound in her chest and glanced around to make sure she was alone before shoving her hand up her shirt. She felt two plastic cards fastened in between her flesh and her bra. Wrinkling her nose once more she yanked them free, holding them up in the light. One was a plastic Master Card. Her eyebrow arched at the card, surprised at its presence but at the same time grateful. She flipped it behind the second card, which she easily recognized as a form of identification.
"Rachel Roth." The name rolled off of her tongue uncomfortably. As much distaste that she found for the alias, she was faced with the fact to accept that it was her name. She lifted the hem of her sweater and shoved the plastic cards in between the flesh of her hips and the tight leggings.
Exiting the minimart, she crossed the street to head further into Jump City. She usually saw it from a bird's eye perspective, so seeing it from a different point of view was a whole new experience for her. Usually she would be downtown where the pizzeria was smack dab in the center of things, but she could tell that she was almost at the outskirts. An unsettling feeling made itself known in the pit of her stomach as she realized she would have to explore her way through the city in order to find her way to familiar parts, She found that to be much more different than flying to a certain sector with a purpose.
Well. She could fly. She just didn't want to draw the attention. One thing would lead to another and in the end she'd wind up back at Titan's Tower, whether it is as Rachel or Raven.
Robin sat at the base of the master computer, his leg drawn up to his chin, the corresponding arm resting on his knee, hand knotted in his hair. His eyes were scrunched into small slits as he furiously typed java scripts into the computer. He had been doing this for most of the afternoon, thankful for the lack of interruptions due to the little excursions he was able to send Starfire, Beast Boy, and Cyborg on.
"What's going on, man?" He heard Cyborg's curious but firm question behind him and chose to ignore his friend, continuing to type in the script. Despite his annoyance at Cyborg's presence it wasn't difficult to understand why the metal man was confused in the fluctuations of Robin's behavior. If anything, he was more irritated at the fact that he hadn't kept Cyborg's 'excursion' enough to distract him from the Boy Wonder, but then and again, Cyborg did seem to be less likely to cause a nuisance than the curious Alien or the pesty Changeling. "You can fool Starfire and you can distract BB, but not me."
Robin's mind was diverted for a moment as he recalled sending Starfire out for some flamboyant pastry that did not exist and Beast Boy out with a pouch full of coins to indulge at the new Mega Arcade that was on the outskirts of Jump City. He also recalled sending Cyborg out on an all-you-can-eat buffet, his treat, but that had obviously just rose suspicion in the half-human, half-robot build.
"Is this about the Raven thing?" Cyborg continued.
"No. It's not actually, but thanks for bringing that back onto my plate." Robin muttered, spinning around to face Cyborg. "Actually," He reached out to touch one of the speakers, playing with a little bit of the felt that had come off of it. "Someone hacked into our database last night. I only noticed when I went online this morning to track Raven, interrupting the download from a foreign computer."
Cyborg's mouth was open ajar, seemingly dumbstruck that anyone could have hacked the Titan's database, which he had put most of his time in ensuring top security. "And why didn't you tell me Rob?" He rushed forward to see what different codes were flashing on the smaller screen. "Let me have a look." The Boy Wonder rose from his seat, allowing Cyborg to sit down and try to figure things out.
"Instead of trying to block out the unwanted party, I tried to connect the world map with our database to try and pinpoint the location. If we take down the person, they won't be a problem to us any longer." His fist connected with his palm in a small gesture that showed he meant business.
"Thanks Rob. Go get yourself something in the fridge, you haven't eaten all day and you're already scrawny to begin with. You're no use to us if you're skin and bones." Cyborg chuckled, knowing his playful banter would strike a hidden nerve in Robin. While he knew the minor insult was going to only deepen Robin's dark mood, he knew it was necessary in order to provoke the Hero to get food.
And it worked, of course. Robin left Cyborg alone and found his way to the fridge, opening it to examine its contents. He couldn't say he was all too surprised to find spoiled milk, frozen leftover pizza, frozen waffles, a half eaten cup of pudding that had some fuzz growing on it, an opened jar of jelly that also had some fuzz growing on it, and a piece of moldy Swiss cheese. Robin grabbed for the pizza and the waffles, deciding he'd eat one or both, depending on how old they were and what their contents were.
"How old's the pizza?" He called out to Cyborg. His attention was momentarily distracted from the food as he took note of Cyborg's furious typing. Cyborg looked back at him and examined the two items he held in his hand.
"The pizza's either two days, or a week old. Don't eat the waffles, they're tofu. Beast Boy's." He turned back to the computer, and Robin shrugged. He set the pizza aside as he returned to the refrigerator to replace the tofu waffles. "Oh god. Robin. Get over here." Cyborg's alarmed voice caused Robin to snap up, bumping his head on the refrigerator.
"What?" Robin's voice was equally alarmed, almost as if he was preparing for the worst. He shut the fridge and made his way to Cyborg's side with only a few brisk paces.
"I located our intruder." Cyborg gestured up to the main screen, where a large map of the United States was shown. Robin's eyes widened when he saw the red tracking dot beeping on the North-East sector of the States.
"No way…" Robin muttered, almost in awe. "There's no way."
"Yes way." Cyborg confirmed, narrowing in on the dot. It narrowed in on the North-Eastern sector, then the state, then the City, then the building. "It looks like someone misses you a little."
Wayne Enterprises, Gotham City