A/N: Eleven pages. This sucker has eleven pages, can you believe it? Speedy actually gave me some trouble in this one...near the end.

Not beta'd.

Thanks: At 'emsscraps'. Probably later tonight or tomorrow. Read them. Sometimes I let little itty-bitty spoilers slip...occasionally. And some people ask really good questions and sometimes I answer them. If I can. As well as I can.

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Stupid Cupid
Chapter 6: Banter
by Em

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"If you smile when no one else is around, you really mean it."
- Andy Rooney

Raven slept later than she ever really had before (at least, while she was not in the med bay instead of her room) and when she woke it was to find Speedy already awake and dressed in his uniform looking at her book collection.

"What time is it?" she asked.

"Around about noon," he answered, unsurprised to find her awake. He turned to her and smiled, "It's kind of hard to tell the time of day in your room you know that?"

She sat up and stretched, "That's the idea."

"But you never sleep in," he argued, walking toward her.

"Apparently, neither do you," she said, looking at his dressed and coiffed appearance.

He chuckled. "Well, some of us prefer to take full advantage of the morning -- er, afternoon."

She stood from the bed and didn't feel as strange as she thought she might at waking up to find Speedy in her room upon waking, but she didn't think about it. "Did you do what you had to do this morning?" she asked, remembering his words from the night before.

He nodded. "All done." He approached her with a grin, "And as promised, I'm all yours for the rest of the day."

She narrowed her eyes at him as she pushed herself into a sitting position. "Not that I want to be nosy or anything, but you know that if you need our help..."

His grin flashed again, about five times brighter than it had been before. "Aw, that's sweet, but it's nothing major." He shrugged. "Just some personal stuff to take care of and I did the first bit of it this morning."

"Alright," she raised her brows, "So what are you doing back in my room, then?" she asked, "Some nefarious purpose?"

"I actually came to wake you up, see if you wanted to have breakfast."

She raised the other brow as she stood from the bed, "If you think I'm going to make breakfast you're sorely mistaken."

He laughed and shook his head, "Oh, no, babe," he said still laughing, "I heard all about your pancake making attempt," he looked completely unperturbed at her scowl, "I think I'll cook."

She chose to ignore commenting on that in favor of something much more important: "You cook?" she asked.

"Are you kidding?" he asked, puffing his chest in mock pride, "Just call me Emeril."

"Well, Emeril," Raven deadpanned as she reached into her drawers for a fresh leotard, "Your culinary masterpiece will have to wait, I'm afraid."

Speedy's face fell, "Don't tell me?" Raven rose a brow and waited. "Nothing in the fridge?"

Raven almost smiled. "Not unless you count the blue mold Starfire's pudding tends to cultivate or the yellowish stuff of questionable origin which no one knows how it got in there."

"You guys are worse than we are!" Speedy exclaimed. "At least at our Tower, Bee and Mas make sure our fridge is stocked."

Raven rolled her eyes, "Lucky you."

"Well, I guess we could go out to eat?" Speedy said pensively.

"Are you hungry?" Raven asked, stopping mid-reach for her boots.

"Actually..."Speedy thought about it, "Not really." He approached her with a mischievous glint in his eye, "Why? Did you have something else in mind we could do?"

Raven rolled her eyes and ignored him, bypassing him for the door. "Where're the others?" she asked.

He shrugged, following her out of her room, "When I went out this morning, they were already gone."

She stopped on her way into the bathroom she shared with Starfire. "All of them?" she asked.

He nodded. "Every last one."

"Hmm," Raven said, opening the door and stepping through. She stopped halfway to taking off her sleep shirt when she realized that the door hadn't closed behind her the way it normally does and should automatically do. She turned around, her hands at her buttons, and raised a brow at Speedy, poised at the door. "Do you need something else?" she asked archly.

Speedy grinned. "Well, I thought we could take a shower together and conserve water."

She narrowed her eyes at him, "Get out."

"It is what lovers do, you know..." he tried.

She turned her back on him as she took off her slippers and picked up her hair nonchalantly. "You have until the count of three. One..."

She heard the door close and felt his kinetic presence on the other side of the door even before she heard his laughter or his steps as he walked away.

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When Raven got out of the shower and made her way to the common room in a fresh leotard and cloak it was to find Speedy working at the Titans' computer. Raven was temporarily taken aback by the look of concentration on his features as he worked. It wasn't that she thought he was incapable of concentration by any means, and certainly not that she thought the look of intelligent consideration in the set of his jaw and the shape of his mouth was necessarily alien on his features, only that it was uncommon.

Granted, she'd only ever worked alongside him once or twice and those times she'd been on a different prong of whatever plan the Titans had been working on and so had only caught glimpses of it. Enough to know that he was capable of it, but not enough to really consider it. It was something like Beast Boy making an intelligent remark. No one really thought the boy was unintelligent, only it was so rare that he used his intelligence that it was his choice to use it that was shocking more than that he possessed it.

He seemed so involved in what he was reading from the computer screen that he didn't hear her come in. It wasn't that she meant to pry, but it was very difficult to avoid seeing at least some snippets of the information he had called up on the screen. She saw nothing more than that it was scans of old newspaper articles and the words, 'Ranger, fire, Navajo, accident, hero, memorial' however, before she stepped close enough for him to hear her approach.

"It seems to me that you've got plenty of things to worry about other than my personal life," she said casually as she walked up behind him.

The change was nearly instantaneous. He didn't switch off the screen or even try to hide what he was looking at, but his expression of serious contemplation was gone as soon as he realized she was in the room, morphing into the same light-hearted, ready grin he usually wore. "Something more important than you, precious?" he asked, tsking and shaking his head, leaning back in the chair and crossing his arms. "How dare you suggest such a thing?"

She rolled her eyes and stopped a foot or two from him, casually keeping her attention from the screen. The last thing she wanted was to make it seem that she was trying to pry into his personal life. "If nothing else, having you around will certainly boost my ego."

He grinned wickedly. "Providing ego boosts is only one of my many services." He leaned forward and waggled his eyebrows suggestively, "You wanna see my specialty?"

She exhaled and made it a point not to glare at him because it was exactly what he expected her to do in response to one of his lascivious suggestions. And although as lascivious suggestions went, that was mild, he knew she knew what he meant. "Seriously," she said instead, approaching another few steps. "I can't help feeling like you're setting aside the personal business that originally brought you here in order to take on this self-imposed quest of yours where I'm concerned."

He leaned back, "I'm not setting anything aside, first of all," he assured her.

"But it wasn't part of your original plan," she insisted.

He shrugged. "Plans change all the time..." he said easily. "You can't get upset every time they do, just because they do." He winked at her, "Especially if they change to present you with an opportunity as delicious as the one I've been presented with."

She rolled her eyes again, bypassing his comment for the true matter they were discussing. "Are you really that laid back and easy going about everything or is this just another act?"

He smiled and there was something about it that was completely sincere. It threw Raven for a moment, catching her off-guard. It made her feel as if she'd just caught sight of some mythical beast or as if she'd just seen something naughty and taboo (she couldn't decide which). "I really and truly believe that life is full of the unexpected and you can either roll with it and enjoy the ride or you can gripe and bitch about it, but what you can't do is stop it from happening. So me?" he shrugged again, "I prefer to enjoy the ride."

Raven shook her head. "You're quite a character..." she allowed.

He winked, "I'll take that as a compliment." When he noticed she was still staring at him as if she were trying to parse through his statements, he chuckled. "Besides, you can't plan out everything in your life, can you?"

"I can try," she said and she looked completely serious with not an ounce of sarcasm to her voice.

He knew she believed that so he laughed, "And how has that worked out for you?"

She thought about it and exhaled. He took that for his answer. "See?" He stood up and approached her. She stepped back, looking up at him warily. "You need to lighten up some, Rae." He reached out a hand and stopped just inches from her face, expecting her to pull away or flinch from his touch. He smiled into her eyes when she didn't pull away. She didn't look happy, but the fact she didn't avoid his touch even when they were all alone was progress. "Turn that frown," he rubbed the pad of his thumb over the crease between her eyebrows, just under her chakra stone, where her frown was visible, "upside down."

"The wind blows, the water flows," Raven said, searching the whites of his mask for his gaze. "Raven frowns."

"That's a chicken answer," he told her.

She frowned even harder at realizing that the serious look was back on his features. The same look he had offered whatever he was looking at on the computer screen. It was a bit disconcerting to have that look directed at her, even if she couldn't see his eyes. "What does poultry have to do with this?" she asked sarcastically.

He held the serious look for a moment before erupting in laughter. "Okay, okay, I'll drop it," he consented. "For now, anyway."

"You say that as if I was trying to get you to change the subject," Raven said.

He raised a brow, the smirk on his lips ruining what would have otherwise been a fair imitation of her own skeptical look. "You weren't?"

She shook her head seriously.

"Fine, then," he put his hands on his hips. "It's a chicken answer meaning that it is a cowardly answer, as is any answer that insinuates that someone simply is a certain way."

Raven blinked, clearly shocked.

"You," and here he approached her again, "Are capable of mirth, you are capable of showing that mirth, and have even occasionally shown that mirth already."

Raven looked positively affronted. "I have not."

He crossed his arms. "I beg to differ." He smiled at her and reached out to gently touch a tip of his finger to the side of her mouth. "I've seen those gorgeous lips of yours curve into a smile with my own two eyes."

She narrowed her eyes. "When?"

He chuckled and shook his head, "Does it matter?"

"Yes, it makes your point."

He thought about it for a moment and although just such an instance when he had seen her smile came to mind, he sighed and shrugged instead. "As beautiful as your smile is and as rare as it is to see it, I do not mentally enumerate the times you've smiled, my love," he said as if he were talking to a small child. He had seen her smile plenty of times, but the only one that came to mind was one instance he was not keen on revealing he had been privy to. "I apologize if that deflates your ego, it was not my intention, but it is the truth." He knew better than to think that Raven's self-imposed blinders would stand up to such a revelation. When she smirked, he grinned and pointed at her in triumph, "A-ha! There!" he exclaimed. "You're smiling now!"

The smirk vanished replaced by another frown. "I am not."

Speedy laughed. "Well, you were."

Raven opened her mouth to argue, then stopped and narrowed her eyes at him. "What this started out being was me offering to let you out of this ridiculous scheme of yours so that you could finish whatever business brought you to Jump in the first place."

"Trying to get rid of me already?" he asked, brow quirked.

"Since the first moment I met you," she quipped.

Speedy thought about that for a moment. "You did close the door in my face," he remembered. She looked at him as if saying, 'See?' He ignored her and shook his head. "I don't understand how people could say you don't have a good sense of humor," he said conversationally.

She raised a brow, "Who said I was joking?"

He put a melodramatic hand to his heart and looked as if someone just shot his cat. "You can't really mean to say you really want me gone?"

"Are you sure you want to be a superhero?" she asked, crossing her arms across her chest. "You seem to have a pretty good chance at making it as an actor."

He grinned and struck a pose. "Why? Because I'm so handsome?"

She pursed her lips, "Because you're such a ham." A moment later, she narrowed her eyes at him. "And don't think I haven't realized that you've changed the subject several times," she pointed out recriminatorily.

"That depends on what you think the subject is, doesn't it?" he asked, without missing a beat.

She didn't buy it for a second. "The subject is what it has been since I walked in here, that you shanghaied yourself into what you perceive to be my romantic problems when you've got issues of your own to deal with."

"I have issue with so many parts of that sentence I just don't know where to start," he said, his tone filled with amused disbelief.

"Why don't we stick to the subject?" she asked sarcastically.

He cocked his head to the side and crossed his arms, a half smile on his lips, "You mean the subject you say deals with your overwhelming guilt about sidetracking me from my initial reason to come to Jump?"

"Exactly," she confirmed.

He raised his brows, "If you want to know why I came to Jump and what my personal business is all you have to do is ask."

If she had less control over herself, she might have stuttered in surprise. Seeing as how Raven has excellent control over her reactions, there was only the smallest infinitesimal second where her eyes popped open in a show of the surprise she was feeling before she controlled it and crossed her arms over her chest, her expression calm and inexpressive. "Why would I want to do that?" she asked.

He chuckled. "You're curious, admit it."

She merely raised her own brows. "Unlike some people, I don't believe in prying into people's private affairs," she said haughtily.

The wicked smile was back on his lips, the smile she was starting to recognize meant he thought he had the upper hand or a brilliant idea and always ended up meaning trouble for her. He approached her slowly, regaining the space between them she had unconsciously carved out. "Unlike some people," he said mimicking her tone, "I believe that someone asking over my private affairs shows concern on their part."

"Doesn't anything bother you?" she asked, seemingly before she could control herself.

There was the flicker of the seriousness come and go across his expression before he met her gaze and nodded very solemly, "Plenty," he admitted. He had cornered her agains the back of the couch and she couldn't walk any further away from him despite the fact he kept approaching. When the backs of her knees hit the back of the couch, he stopped a few inches away from her. "Now if you want to know what, you'll have to actually ask me a personal question..." he raised his brows in teasing expectation, "Are you up for that, you think?"

She narrowed her eyes at the challenge and opened her mouth to speak when she stopped and cocked her head to the side, as if she were hearing something far away that he couldn't hear, her expression going from half-amused annoyance to the considering face of Raven the Titan in five seconds flat.

He reached out with his own senses, trying to find what had caught her attention but he couldn't hear anything out of the ordinary. "What is it?" he asked.

Apparently finding what she was looking for, she almost visibly relaxed and turned back to him. "The others are back," she announced.

"How do you do that?" he wondered.

She raised a brow as if she couldn't believe he had asked such a thing. "Empath?"

"Oh yeah," he said wryly. He clapped and was all business again. "Alright, so how long until they get here?"

"I said I was an empath, not some sort of human heat sensor. I can only tell they're in the Tower, the lower levels."

"Then that means we haven't got much time to put on a convincing show for when they get up here, doesn't it?" he asked, approaching her with that look that spoke volumes about the level of his concentration and intent.

She took a step back and looked a question at him. "If you think we're going to..."

He put his hands on her shoulders and squeezed, smiling down at her, "I'm just going to hug you," he said in the tone of voice reserved for talking to people on the edge. "Is that alright?" Before she could answer, he slipped his arms around her and linked his hands at her back. She was as stiff as a board.

She really didn't know what to do. She could smell the faint whiff of her soap on his skin, the steady thump of his heart at his pulse points and the crisp earthiness of his aura like the feel of Autumn on her tongue. He chuckled and she felt the vibrations of it through his chest.

"This isn't going to work..." he spoke and she heard his voice muffled as through water.

And then he pulled back and his arms slipped away and it felt to her as if she'd been suddenly thrust into nothingness after being surrounded by life. It was very disconcerting, to say the least. Which was, of course, why she was so very pliant as he took her wrists in his hands and wrapped her own arms around his waist, linking her hands together as if she were a belt he were putting on.

He took her chin in his hand and as her face was raised to look up at his masked eyes, she blinked in surprise at finding him so very close.

"Now..." he spoke in that same oh-so-patient voice. "How about a smile?"

Finally gathering her wits about her, she raised a brow and offered him a very patient look.

"Aw, c'mon," he cajoled, "This isn't so bad is it?"

Even though her first reaction was to respond that it was, (irregardless of the fact that it wasn't exactly 'bad' per se, just...disconcerting) his almost childlike expression prevented her from being so blunt about it. "I feel like a belt," she noted instead.

"A belt?" he asked, raising a brow.

She moved her arms, but didn't unlink them. He laughed, throwing his head back and she could feel the laugh move through his body and when she looked up at him, it was to curiously detail the line of his throat. When his laughter had died down and he had lowered his head to look at her again, she had to remind herself of what they were speaking of in order to continue her previous train of thought.

"I would trade a dozen of Boy Wonder's utility belts if I could put you on like this every day instead," he said, the smile on his lips reaching all the way through his words.

There was something almost charming about the statement, and perhaps it was the way the smile was the kind she was coming to recognize as his real smile that made her think he was sincere. "I doubt a Raven Belt would be as useful, though."

Speedy chuckled, "But a helluva lot prettier, though."

And the wryness of his tone broke through her self-imposed facial serenity and before she knew it, she was smiling. It wasn't a big smile, or a bright smile, just a slight shifting of the lines of her lips, the corners raising just a bit, she wasn't even showing teeth, but at the sight of it, Speedy beamed.

"See?" Speedy asked, smiling down at her, "That's all I wanted." He shrugged and since his arms were still around her, it made her almost shrug with him. "Just a smile."

Her own arms still where he had put them, she narrowed her eyes at him, the small smile still lingering about the corners of her lips. "No," she argued. "You're a pervert and you probably wanted something else, but that's all your getting."

Sometime after his uproarious laughter and her smile, the Titans had found their way to the main room. Raven had, of course, felt their presence so close to them, but she was so used to their presence and having forgotten about the fact they were supposed to be playing a role, she had registered their arrival much like one registers the sounds of cars passing on the street through a window—white noise.

But Beast Boy's exclamation, "That is so ultra weird," which was probably louder than the others would have liked, certainly brought their presence to the forefront.

Having been so thoroughly caught off guard as to their presence, Raven's first reaction, understandably, was to pull away from the embrace. Speedy, however, tightened his arms and stopped her, giving her a meaningful look which reminded her instantaneously of their role. When she relaxed in his hold, he slowly removed his arms from around her and she was able to turn around to face her teammates.

Robin, Starfire, Cyborg, and Beast Boy stood as if frozen in that space between the elevator and the living room. Raven noted their brown paper bags full of groceries each of them carried and she remembered suddenly that it was Saturday and that they always went grocery shopping on Saturday mornings.

"Hey, guys," Speedy spoke into the silence, slipping an arm comfortably around Raven's shoulder, "finally decided to show up, huh?" he asked casually.

Beast Boy, being the easiest one to be adaptable to a new situation, had already pretty much accepted Speedy's presence in their home rather readily. "You guys are the ones that slept in passed a normal hour!" he was therefore able to declare, being the first to enter the room.

"Says the one who sleeps until two in the afternoon...regularly," Raven countered.

"And he doesn't even have a cute girl to cuddle with," Speedy added casually.

Raven and Beast Boy both blushed and Speedy impulsively kissed her cheek, "I love making her blush..." he told Beast Boy, winking at him as he let her go and walked toward Robin and Starfire, holding his hands out for a share of the packages they were carrying. "Can I help?" he asked.

"Of course!" Starfire answered, handing him three of the heavy packages which Speedy almost buckled under the weight of.

He chuckled dryly, "Uh, yeah...forgot about your strength Star..." he groaned, "Maybe you should help me?" he asked playfully.

Since Star was still carrying three grocery bags, she laughed, recognizing his joke. "I will show you where to deposit them, follow me please!" she said cheerfully, floating off in the direction of the kitchen.

Speedy glanced back at Raven who allowed a small smile before shrugging and he smiled and followed Starfire, carrying the bags with a lot more ease than he had initially pretended, whistling a merry tune as he went.

Which left Cyborg, Robin, and Beast Boy looking at Raven, all four teens obviously uncomfortable.

"I should go help them," Raven finally spoke, starting toward the kitchen.

"Rae," Cyborg called seriously.

She looked at him and after a moment, smiled- a soft, sincere, small, but pure Raven Smile. "I know," she assured him.

Cyborg and she kept eye contact for a few moments more before he blushed a little and grinned, scratching at the back of his head, "Well, alright then," he said happily and let her go.

"What the hell was that all about?" Beast Boy asked as Raven entered the kitchen.

"Is that all you're going to say?" Robin pressed.

Cyborg looked at Robin seriously, "All I had to tell her was that I was here in case she needed me, for anything, and to be careful, and she got that, so what else is there to say?" he asked.

"I didn't hear any of that," Beast Boy pointed out, but both Robin and Cyborg ignored him.

"I don't know, Cy, I thought..." Robin trailed off and exhaled.

"If there's something else you gotta tell her, then that's your thing, man...not mine," Cyborg said pointedly, walking past Robin with no more than a hand on his shoulder, "I'm gonna help them in the kitchen."

Beast Boy looked at Robin for a while, then in the direction Cyborg had gone, then back to Robin and sighed, "I never understand what the hell's going on."

Robin turned to him and the expression on his face was not pleasant, "Do you get that Raven's screwing Speedy?" he asked, his tone even. When Beast Boy's eyes opened at the suddenness of it, Robin sighed and shook his head, "Forget it." He started to walk away, but Beast Boy's hand was on his arm.

Finding Robin's attention on him, Beast Boy let him go but when Robin started walking again, Beast Boy spoke up, "What I got was that Speedy's making Raven happy." Robin stopped and Beast Boy exhaled, realizing he had said the right thing. "And I get that Cyborg was worried about Rae getting hurt again," he continued, "But you know, that's something no one can protect us from...getting hurt again...not even ourselves." Beast Boy realized that Robin hadn't moved still, "What I don't get," he said, wincing (was he really going to say this?) "is what's got your tights in a twist about it?" He grimaced and closed his eyes, expecting any sort of backlash or being told to shut up or who knew what, but when a few moments passed and nothing happened, he opened his eyes to slits and found that he was by himself in the room.

"Well, that coulda gone worse," he said to himself. "Might've gone better..." he trailed off and shrugged, deciding to follow the others into the kitchen and see what they were up to.

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A/N: Could BB have said something intelligent?