Chp. 1 An Unexpected Expectation


He broke the surface easily without anything more than a ripple. His destination a mere few yards away. The Titan Tower. The home of the original titans and his ticket out of this mess he was currently in.

Ducking back under the water he swam the remaining yards before walking onto shore.

"Please, please let them say yes." He prayed to himself before taking a deep breath and ringing the doorbell.

"Whose there?" he heard Cyborg's voice ask as a camera zoomed in on his face.

"Hi Cy," he answered as he smiled up at the camera.

"Uh-oh. What do you want?"

"What?" Aqualad asked as his smile faded to be replaced by nervousness.

"You're smiling too big. What do you want?"

"I'm only here to visit. What makes you…?"

"Just stop and come in. Whatever you want will come up sooner or later." Cyborg said as the door opened to allow Aqualad entrance.


"So how have you been?" Aqualad asked pleasantly.

"Fine." Cyborg answered bluntly as he Robin, and Beastboy stared the aquatic lad down. "What do you want?"

"How have the girls been?" Aqualad continued, ignoring the question.

"Fine." Beastboy answered this time, "what do you want?"

"Read any good books lately?"

"WHAT DO YOU WANT?" all three yelled.

"Fine!" Aqualad yelled back in frustration. "Fine. I try to be pleasant but you have to…"

"What do you…?"

"…Want? I got it. Fine. Okay, listen. I have a bit of a problem. I need someone to substitute as my personnel guard, until my parents leave. You see it's like this: in order for my parents to let me live by myself, I have to be capable of keeping my part of the sea peaceful and hold up traditions. One of the traditions happens to be that the ruler must have two appointed guards to uphold the kingdom while I'm away. And it just so happens, that one of my guards eloped with a human a few months back and I haven't replaced them yet. I really should have just gone and got that over with from the start, but no, I had to procrastinate and now my parents are coming to visit, and I don't have enough time to find somebody, and so…here I am."

"Dude? Why didn't you just say so sooner? I'll be your body guard. I'll be like: 'Keep away or you will be terminated." Beastboy exclaimed, imitating Arnold Schwarzenegger.

"It has to be a girl." Aqualad told him, dashing his dream.

"Why?"

"Because one has to be male and the other female. And, SHE ran off to Vegas. That's why I'm here; I was hoping Starfire could help me out. You know, just until my parents." Aqualad pleaded with a hopeful look, while Robin tried to hide his smile of happiness.

"I'm sorry Aqualad, but…Starfire went home to help her sick uncle slash nanny."

"Oh." He said disappointedly, and then with out any enthusiasm, he asked about Raven.

"Sure, if you don't mind getting you head bitten off." Beastboy blurted out before Cyborg could slap a hand over his mouth.

"Why didn't you ask Bee?"

"Well…"

Flashback

"So what do you say?" Aqualad asked with puppy dog eyes, as he looked at Bee hopefully.

Bee and Speedy exchanged glances. "…aha…ha….ha…ha…ha…" and it just went on. Speedy and Bee were crying and rolling all over the floor with laughter.

Mas y Menos, who had come in later, were laughing just to be laughing. Neither had a clue about what was going on though.

And so had all four been laughing when he left.

End flashback

"She's busy."

"And you don't know any other girls?" Cyborg insisted as he released Beastboy.

"No.Why? Don't you want Raven to help me?"

"No."

"Oh." Aqualad muttered, stunned at Cyborg's bluntness.

"Don't worry dude. Ever since he, unofficially, adopted Raven as his little sister, he's been overdoing the big brother act." Beastboy told him reassuringly.

"Come on, I need her help, otherwise I'll have to go back there, female guardian-less and my parents will send me back home where they'll make me do that thing again…and I hate the thing, and if I have to do the thing...again heads will roll!"

"Whoa! Calm down." Robin called out urgently, "I'll go ask Raven for you, and…if I don't come back in 15 minutes, she said no."

"And if she says no," Aqualad commented a little too eagerly for Cyborg's liking, "I can just wait till Starfire comes back. I'll just tell my parents that I was on titan business."

"Well then, we'll have to make sure she doesn't say no, won't we?" Robin muttered under his breath as he dashed up the stairs.


"What are you going to tell him?" Robin asked nervously as he told Raven Aqualad's dilemma.

"I'm going to tell him no." she told him as she made her way to the door.

"NO, Wait!" Robin yelled urgently as he went to block her way.

"That's cute." Raven said randomly with a small smile.

"What?" he asked completely caught off guard.

"That you actually think you're stopping me. That's cute."

"Raven, as your leader, I demand that you go and pose as Aqualad's bodyguard."

"Now you're making me angry." She warned him.

"No, ever since we defeated your father, things don't explode when you express, or feel emotions."

"Exactly. So if I kill you…it was intentionally."

"Umm…at least…hear me out before you do it." He told her quietly as he closed the door to the roof, which is where they were.

"Go ahead."

"Okay, if you do this…I'll…give you anything you want, just name it."

She considered him for a moment. "Fine, I want my room refurbished."

"You got it." He said without hesitation.

"I'm not finished."

"Oh."

"I want a black, Paul Bunyan bed, canopy style, a set of Egyptian cotton sheets, of every color. I want the border around my wall to be built in shelves, I want my bathroom bigger, with a Jacuzzi tub, I want a secret room installed behind my book shelf, and I want my closest bigger and…"

"Are you done? You are draining me dry."

"AND," she continued as if she hadn't heard him, "…and I want an easel, and a full paint set."

"I don't know Raven; it's not really in the budget to be…"

"We afford a big screen TV every other week, every time you lose the remote, you get a new TV, we can afford the newest version of gaming devices every month, you bought a pool, and we're surround by water, Starfire has a diamond encrusted jar of mustard, and you're telling me this isn't in the budget."

"Fine, but the guys are going to be plenty upset when the gold plated shoes don't arrive."

"They'll get over it, now do we have a deal?" She asked holding her hand out.

"Yeah, I guess." He said, grudgingly as he grabbed her hand. "What was that?" he suddenly yelled as he felt an internal pulling, shoot throughout his body as he clasped her hand.

"We made a deal. If you don't do as we agreed…you're mine."

"Yours…what do you…mean?" he asked uncertainly as she smiled wickedly and, for the first time in a while, he was truly reminded of her demon heritage.

"Don't do as I say, and you'll see."


"So how long is this for?" Cyborg asked as they all stood on the beach.

"I don't know, a week, a few days, a month…my parents aren't always predictable."

"What will she be doing? Just standing by your side, fighting monsters, what?"

"Just standing there, and what's with the interrogation? Are you ready yet, or not?" the last question was directed at Raven, who, was talking to a nervous Robin about something, but as he asked his question, she looked up at him with dull eyes.

"I've been waiting on you."

"Oh…so you've been…waiting on me…but you're just standing."

"Good observation."

"But what, about that scuba sub thing, don't you have to get that?"

"No, I'm going to swim."

"But…" and his eyes flickered upward as he tried to think of something.

"Dude, quit stalling! She's not coming! Damn!" Beastboy snapped, resulting in surprised eyes to turn his way.

"What?" he asked with a huff. "You were all thinking it. She won't be back for a week or two. Now go!"

"Oh. Well, I guess we can go now, then." He mumbled disheartened, without turning to face her.

"Don't get too excited. You might explode." She told him sarcastically, before mumbling a spell under her breath. Her body glowed with her powers for a second, before returning back to normal. "Now we can go." She said as she began unbuckling her cloak.

"Well, we'll see you guys in…OH MY GOD!" Aqualad, who had his back to Raven the whole time, turned around to find her standing with her cloak in her hand. Suddenly, being stuck with Raven didn't seem so bad.

Raven, for all she was worth, ignored or didn't hear him as she twirled her cloak like a matador until it disappeared into thin air.

"Hey!" Cyborg called out angrily, placing a hand on Aqualad's shoulder and forcefully turning his head away from Raven. "What are you doing?" he called to her, over Aqualad's struggling head.

"The cloak gets too heavy, when wet." She told him, as she began to stretch and get ready for her long swim.

"Stop that!" he demanded as he,not only had a harder time keeping Aqualad's eyes off her, but saw Robin and Beastboy were getting an eye full.

"Knew she was hot under that cloak." Beastboy said with a wolfish grin. Robin was smart enough to make himself less obvious and kept his mouth shut.

"Watch it!" Cyborg warned.

"I am." The changeling said imprudently, before he was backhanded by Cyborg, who, in order to hit him, had to release his hold on Aqualad.

"Are you ready or not?" Raven asked with an annoyed gruffness to her voice as she stared down at Aqualad, who had fallen in his plight to get away from Cyborg.

"Uhhh…yeah let's go." He said in a rushed voiced as he hopped to his feet, grabbed Raven's hand, and took off running for the ocean, diving out of sight and pulling Raven along with him.


Raven let him drag her a few miles underwater before she got tired of all the fast movement. 'That's enough' she shouted at him with her mind before she blasted him off her arm with her powers.

"What's the problem?" he asked swimming back to her, but as he opened his mouth, only bubbles issued forth instead of the words.

'You're going to fast.' She thought to him.

'We've got to hurry, it's a long way's off.'

'I am not a fish.' She thought to him, 'You can't talk to me this way.' At a nod from his head she continued. 'You swim, I'll follow.' Another nod and he took off.

Now that she wasn't being drug along, Raven took more time to appreciate her surroundings. When they had first started out, the water was light blue, almost clear, but the further they went down, the darker the water got. Also, like the water, the marine life also changed. The fish went from small, colorful, and beautiful, to large, mono colored, and unique. Once, a whale or at least she assumed it was a whale, she just knew it was really big, swam over their heads, the current it left behind sent them into a flurry of small whirlpools. It was singing as it went along, so it wasn't so bad.

It was nice, but once, or twice, or maybe a few times, she caught Aqualad staring at her. To say the least, she was annoyed. By the umpteenth time that he did this, she gathered her thoughts and was about to give him a piece of her mind, literally, when Atlantis came into view. It was breathtaking and it completely blew her mind. It was nestled deep down at the bottom of a trench, which gave off a natural light from, what she considered, moss that grew along its wall. The castle looked to be made from coral, but as they swam closer, she could tell that it looked smooth, instead of rough.

Turning towards Aqualad, she wiped the astonished look off her face as she saw his satisfied, smug, face looking at her expectantly. Turning back to the castle, she looked at it with indifference and shrugged.

Sighing to himself, Aqualad swam up to Raven and tapped her on the shoulder. When she faced him again, he motioned for her to follow him before swimming off.

He lead her to the back of the castle and then to an underground entryway. He was the first to emerge from the pool, the light, from inside, nearly blinding him as he hopped out onto the marble floor. He turned to help Raven, only to find her standing next to him and looking at him with a slightly envious look.

"What now?"

"Water just slides off you." She told him as she magicked (if it's not a word, it is now.) the water off her body. He had tried not to look at her uniform as it clung to her body, but now that she was dry, he could focus on more important things now.

"It's a perk." He said with a charming smile, that had had Raven swooning when they had first met, but now it hardly seemed to faze her.

"Obviously." She replied in her monotone as she folded her arms across her chest. "Don't you have to clue me in on exactly what I'll be doing?"

"I'll be doing that ma'am."

He was there so suddenly that Aqualad jumped back in fright. One minute he had talking to Raven, he blinked, and there was someone else there. Raven, who hadn't jumped, but was surprised, studied the newcomer with a casual eye. He was tall, as tall as or taller than Cyborg, with aqua-green skin, pointy ears, and a scar over his left eye. He was bald, with nothing but a fin atop his head, another, larger, on his bareback, one on each of his upper arms, and one each on his calves. He wore nothing but a pair of black trunks and he was well muscled, although his muscles were small and wiry. In other words, he was more muscled than Robin, Beastboy, and Aqualad, but not as much as Cyborg.

"How do you do that?" Aqualad demanded angrily, although the newcomer simply raised an eyebrow at him before looking pointedly at Raven.

"Oh, yeah. Prodigis, this is Raven, Raven this is Prodigis, my guard. Raven will be taking over as your counter until my parents leave."

"A pleasure." Prodigis said in an extremely masculine voice as he shook Raven's hand with his clawed, webbed ones.

"Likewise." She said with an enticing smile, one which he returned.

"Yes, and I…" Aqualad, who had saw this wordless communication, stepped in and loudly took Raven's hand from Prodigis's. "…was just about to brief Raven about everything and show her to her room.

"No you're not." Prodigis told him firmly, as he pulled Raven to his side. "While you've been gone everyone has gone insane. The cooks need your input about what to cook, the decorators don't know what and where to do their job, the maids and butlers don't know what your parents do and don't like, you have to decide where they will sleep, you have not done any paperwork for weeks, and you have to be measured for your robes, and your parents are coming tomorrow. While you do that, I, shall brief her in on what's to happen and show her to her room."

"But…" Aqualad began to argue.

"Off with you." Prodigis said sternly, before turning his back on him and ushered Raven down the hall.


"For a bodyguard, you sure do tell him what to do." Raven commented after a while of walking and talking.

"It's part of the job. As his bodyguard, my other job is as adviser…here we are." Prodigis had been telling her what was expected of her as he led the way to her room. So far, she had gotten everything he had said. "This is your room here. Next toit is his highness's, and next to his is mine. That way, if something were to happen we could be there in no time. Our rooms are all connected by a secret passage, leading from your fireplace, to his bookcase, and my bookcase, to his fireplace."

Nodding her head to show that she understood, she turned to him with a curious expression. "Your job is to be his personnel bodyguard and adviser; am I just a bodyguard or do I have two jobs also?"

Prodigis frowned. "He hasn't told you?"

"Told me what?"

Without replying, Prodigis smiled mischievously and leant in close to Raven. "I wouldn't want to spoil the surprise." He whispered into her ear as he opened her door.

"What surprise?" she asked suspiciously.

"I'm sure you've had a long day. Enjoy your rest." Smiling, he gestured for her to enter the room. Frowning she did as he said, but as she turned to question him again, she found him gone.


BrieZee: Look who started a new fic. Nothing else to say, so R&R. Oh and before I go, pt. 2 of For the Love ofa Raven, has been posted.