Chapter 3: Raven the comedian
"Ow…ow…OW! Dude watch the arm!" a heavily bandaged Beastboy screeched.
"Maybe if you stop squirming I won't have too!" Cyborg yelled, as he placed a blue blob of antiseptic liniment atop Beastboy's head.
"OW! OW! OW!"
It was an awfully blistering and clammy day in the Tower, particularly since all four Titans were now squashed in the Titan aid room together; with Cyborg and his gadgets their only help.
"Friend Beast, the stinging leaves you" muffled Starfire, who was sitting across an armchair, an icepack pasted across her forehead.
The only person who seemed to be in the slightest way injured was Raven; which came as a query to the rest of the Titans as they found her, once they themselves awoke aching and throbbing all over their body, lying on a big patch of broken glass. It was obvious she had fallen from the roof, but they just couldn't grasp the fact that Raven walked away with only a tiny bump on her cheek. Than again, Raven didn't tell the Titans that Red-X was the one who had caught her and sheltered her from the falling glass.
"If you need me I'll be in my room", Raven whispered, but no-one really heard, Beastboy was complaining out aloud, Cyborg began to heal himself with a blowtorch and Star…well Star was always one to mumble to herself in some unknown language.
Raven stood up and wrenched her hooded cloak over her pastel face and headed to her room.
Shutting the door, Raven leaned back into her bed and closed her eyes.
Her mind began to battle with the infinite possibilities as to why Red-X, the most malevolent villain's apprentice, caught her, no, saved her, from her own dim-witted death.
"Argh", Raven mumbled to herself as she bit on her bottom lip, "I was too caught up. I should have…I should have-"
A slight knock on Raven's door broke Raven mid-sentence.
Raven abruptly sat up and stared at the door, all too aware who had just knocked.
More vigorously than the last, a knock filled Raven's shadowy and ominous room.
"Uh…Raven-" Robin cleared his throat and knocked again.
"Raven? The Titans said you were in here?"
Raven hurriedly got off the bed and forcefully opened the door.
"What?" Raven hissed.
Robin was taken aback at the sudden noxious tone that shot out of Raven's mouth.
Robin stared blankly at Raven, rubbing the back of his untidy coal-black hair.
"Look", Robin said, "I already apologised to the rest of the guys; I didn't know Red-X was going to be that tough."
Raven rolled her eyes and glared.
"Let me guess? Slade got away…yet again", Raven stated.
Robin unexpectedly began to scowl Raven.
"I had him, he just-"
"Got away?" Raven smirked, "I don't know anything about leading Robin, but if were a Team, as you constantly bark at us in training, maybe you should sometimes be in that team!"
Raven rapidly slammed the door at Robin's face.
Crap, she thought to herself as she ogled the door, I should have controlled anger. I'm going to get it now.
But she didn't. Robin didn't come charging into her room, shouting that he was in charge or that catching Slade was the crucial obligation for the team.
No, instead Robin stunned at the impulsive vigor Raven slammed the door with, turned around and sauntered to his room.
Upon entering, Robin speedily closed his door, and reached behind his bed and pulled out a metal container.
Reaching for the Red-X suit, Robin groaned and threw it across his room, and forcefully laid down on his bed, his hands placed firmly behind his head.
"Who am I?" Robin questioned to himself.
He was a Titan, with all his heart, Robin knew that.
But the rush of taking something, of doing something he wasn't supposed to do, what no hero is supposed to do, gave Robin such a rush it, in a terrorising way, fulfilled him. He was always the good savior, the good teenager, the adolescent who knew only good in his life.
He didn't like hurting the Titans; he only would strike them in places that would heal the fastest, preferring to knock them out cold as swiftly as possible instead of hurting them. He didn't like taking from society either, what he did at the bank, he would gleefully return tomorrow with an extra addition of course, to a local charity or orphanage, because that's what Robin does; he gives away millions to people who need him, he gives himself away to people who need him.
Red-X, on the other hand, is not selfless, or so Robin thought.
What he did, early that day, before the sun now rested, tormented his insides.
He obviously was going to save Raven; he would have saved any of the Titans. But didn't he realise, that by throwing his Red-X apparatus would shatter the glass roof-top and make Raven twirl to a grisly death. He knew this, well it came to Robin now, but Red-X knew it than.
He had wanted to save Raven.
"ARGH!" Robin stood up and grabbed the suit, facing a short mirror that leaned against his wall, "I don't…I don't want Raven." Robin's eyes fell to the suit, as his mind began to engage in circuitous games with him.
Robin began to remember the soft feel of Raven beneath him, her yielding pant beside his cut neck. He gaudily remembered that, though the sharp glass slashed the flesh off his back; he became incredibly aroused by the feel of Raven underneath him. If he had gotten off just a moment later, he would have known for sure that Raven felt his provocation in the nether regions of his unbelievably tight suit.
Robin's crystal cobalt eyes crept back towards the mirror.
"I don't want Raven", Robin hissed to himself, "I don't want Raven, I never have and I never wil-"
An abrupt rupture of laughter shot through the Tower, breaking Robin's sprawling thoughts.
Throwing the suit aside, Robin stormed out of his room and found himself in the Tower's living room with Starfire, Cyborg and Beastboy laughing maniacally. His eyes lingered to the far right corner, and saw Raven hunched against the sofa, her arms robustly crossed.
Robin indisputably would have seen Raven in that fractious stance a thousand times, it's what she knew best, but at the sight of her dark lilac disheveled hair around her face and her cream shoulders curved, Robin felt a sudden wrench in his gut, or perhaps somewhere lower.
"Robin…Robin!" Beastboy declared in and out of a snigger, "Raven ahaha…" Beastboy quickly wiped a tear, "Raven thinks ahaha Raven thinks Red-X has the hots for her!"
With that said, Starfire and Cyborg burst into another rage of laughter.
Raven frowned at the Titans as she caught Robin's lingering gaze.
"Don't give me that look", Robin was caught off guard, as all of a sudden felt enormously warm, "they're being idiots, ignore them. I only said, after the thirtieth time as to why I walked away with barely a scratch from falling down the bank's roof, Red-X saved me."
The other three Titans muffled their chuckles as they focused their attention to a now flushed Raven.
"Than", Raven continued, "they kept asking me why he would that? And I only thought…I only said the first thing that came into my mind…maybe he likes me. I don't know, it just popped in my head and I stupidly blurted it out. They wouldn't shut up before with the questions and now they won't either!"
Robin definitely began to feel hot, as the rest of the Titans, excluding a fuming Raven, fell into another round of hysterics.
Robin didn't know what to do, all the Titans turned to look at him, as he stayed silent.
He thought of the first thing that came rushing to his mind, correction second thing, as his eyes continued to prowl over Raven; he burst out laughing, not that he found Raven's comment hilarious, quite the contrary actually, it's just he was Robin, and as Robin, before this whole situation with Raven came abroad, he would laugh at Raven for saying something like that.
Though his mirth was cut short when Raven left the room, the other Titans barely noticed, he wouldn't have either if he wasn't so suddenly focused on her.
She was, before today, indistinguishable to him to anyone else; a shadow that, before it pounced upon him went away its own business.
Robin began to softly chuckle to match the other Titan's amusement when he imagined what Raven would be doing now, in her room…alone.
Robin mentally hit himself on the head.
Stop it, he spat at himself.
It was too late; once Robin became curious, nothing in his way stopped him.
He'd wait though, wait until the Tower was dead asleep; wait until Raven slowly slipped out his name at night when he'll show himself.
His name
His name: Red-X.
A/N: Review if you want more!! pretty please...I'll even throw a cherry on top :D