The first thing Raven noticed when she woke up was the strong musky scent that filled her nostrils. The smell was a wonderful combination of the crisp scent after a downpour in a thick forest and the fresh scent that always seemed to be hovering around near the ocean. It was absolutely intoxicating.
Raven's eyes fluttered open and she studied her room. One of her observations included seeing that she was still wearing Robin's jacket. A memory of his woodsy aftershave with a hint of perspiration enveloped her senses. She sighed, dreading the moment she would have to return it.
With a great yawn, Raven stood up and practiced the stretches they had been working on in Hand to Hand Combat. Once that was finished, the empath hopped into the shower and scrubbed her body clean with a body wash. She stood still for awhile, letting the warm water pour down her back. While the water was beating down on her naked flesh, she tried clearing her mind of any thoughts about Robin. It seemed like he had an extraordinary ability of crawling underneath her skin and she just couldn't shake him off.
Raven entered the living room ten minutes later, carrying Robin's jacket. She found him in the kitchen. He was quietly whistling as he prepared his usual cup of coffee. When she entered, he craned his neck to look around and he smiled when he saw that it was her. Betraying no emotion whatsoever, Raven handed him his jacket.
A slight frown crossed his face. "What's this?"
"Your jacket," Raven said. "I'm returning it to you."
"Why?"
"Because it's yours."
"Keep it."
"No," Raven said.
"I can afford to buy more jackets, Raven. Besides, I want you to have it," Robin adamantly stated.
"Robin!" Raven exasperatedly said.
"Keep it."
This was not the way Raven envisioned this conversation with Robin. She had expected him to give her a cocky smirk and hint at some sexual innuendo. It certainly fit his character.
Noticing signs of resignation on her face, Robin asked, "So, do you have plans today?"
"Aside from going to the meeting with my mentor after lunch, no."
"Would you like to accompany me to Jump City this evening?" Robin asked, the barest hint of hopefulness in his voice.
"Careful, Boy Blunder. You wouldn't want to make it sound like a date," Raven replied, pouring steaming herbal tea from a kettle into a cup.
"Yeah..." Robin mumbled, watching her leave the large kitchen. When she was out of sight, Robin quickly drained the coffee mug of coffee, ignoring the scalding heat that danced across his tongue.
-Two Hours Later-
"They hate me," Bumblebee stated, a trembling edge in her voice.
Every person in Class Titan was currently in the common room, occupying themselves with something. Bumblebee had watched in disappointed horror as the news broadcaster showed a video of the fight they had been involved with in Jump City.
"Although this hasn't been confirmed, one can assume that these teenagers attend the academy that was recently opened up for young superheroes. However, it would appear that this school isn't all it's cracked up to be. The criminals Mammoth, Gizmo, and an unknown person were outnumbered and it appears that these teenagers with super powers couldn't handle the issue. Are these teenagers a joke? Is the academy run by the Justice League a joke? Only time will tell," the reporter said. The news broadcaster went into details, dissing both Beast Boy and Bumblebee without mercy.
"Hey, at least you're not alone," Beast Boy grumpily told Bumblebee.
"Yeah, that makes me feel so much better," Bumblebee sarcastically told Beast Boy.
"Wait, when did you guys get caught up in a fight, anyway?" Kid Flash asked.
"When you guys were seeking the thrilling side of life," Cyborg answered.
"I bet I could have taken them on alone," Kid Flash pompously stated, grinning.
"I strongly doubt that!" Beast Boy yelled.
"You couldn't even handle taking care of a kid," Speedy said, an amused glint in his eye.
Beast Boy frowned before childishly sticking his tongue out at the gingers. Maybe that one phrase was true. Maybe gingers really didn't have souls.
Suddenly, there was a knock at the door.
-Meanwhile With Batman On The Watchtower-
Batman finished typing up his report. Lately, Superman had been getting on his case about not filing criminal reports. Therefore, Batman started making a point about making the reports while tampering with Superman's. The adjusted reports contained hints of Bruce Wayne's humor. Once Clark discovered that the reports were messed with, Bruce had a strong feeling that he would finally be able to placidly work in the Batcave. One could only hope.
Batman swiftly stood up and quickly made his way to the living compartments. He stopped in front of a particular room and punched in the code that would unlock the door. The door slid open and the infamous vigilante entered, retreating into the shadows of the small room. He could easily hear the running water in the adjourning bathroom. Soon enough, the water shut off and the person that was on his mind entered the small bedroom, hair obviously damp, adding to the allure of the Amazonian.
As soon as she had finished putting her shoes on, Batman stepped out of the shadows. With a tone a little less gruff than his signature Batman voice, but still identifiable, Batman said, "Diana."
Diana jumped, surprised. "Br-Batman. It amazes me how you're still able to manage that and surprise me."
"Alfred told me that you wished to speak to me last night," he said.
"That is true," Diana vaguely said, her mind wrapping around the parts of his conversation with Catwoman that she had overheard.
"About what?" Batman urged, his patience wearing thin.
"I just wanted to see you," she simply stated.
"Missed my irresistible dark charm, eh?" Batman said, getting out of character for a few moments.
"Of course," Wonder Woman dryly replied. "It's always the highlight of my day."
Batman removed his gauntlets, delicately placing them on Diana's desk. After taking off the gauntlets, he slowly took off his cowl, revealing his handsome face. He quietly made his way towards the Amazonian princess and wrapped his arms around her waist. She encircled her arms around him and placed her head on his chest. The two superheroes thought for a few minutes, enjoying each other's company and the comfortable silence.
Surprising him, Diana was the first one to break away from his hug. She stared into his eyes and gently stroked his cheek with her thumb. "Why was Catwoman there, Bruce?"
"Of course you would know about that," he sighed. "She seems to believe that Two-Face is plotting something. Something big. Selina also thinks that Two-Face stole one of her possessions."
"What do you think?"
"Two-Face doesn't usually lash out directly, that much I can tell you. There's a possibility that he ordered one of his men to sweep her apartment. Then, there's the fact that Selina didn't even see Two-Face around. I have a feeling that this is one of her little ruses in trying to start a relationship with me by having me spend more time with her on this case," Batman admitted honestly.
"If that's actually true, would she succeed?" Diana whispered.
"My feelings for Selina have long disappeared."
Bruce stepped away from Diana and went over to the desk to retrieve the parts of his costume that he had discarded there. After they were properly in place, he made his way towards the door.
"I have a board meeting at one. I'd best get a few hours of sleep. After all, it would hardly do to miss the board meeting."
"I thought you never slept," Wonder Woman joked.
With the barest hints of a smile and a final glance at her, Batman swiftly exited the room.
-Meanwhile With Class Titan-
"I'll get it!" Beast Boy shouted, heading for the door.
The teenager pulled open the door to reveal the petite form of Hawkgirl. Behind the Thanagarian was Green Lantern. Both of them appeared to be mad. Ah, lovely.
Green Lantern was the one who spoke. "Is it alright if we, uh, come in?"
With a sinking feeling in his stomach, Beast Boy nodded and stepped aside. When the two Justice League members were inside the tower, Beast Boy shut the door and sat down on the couch next to Bumblebee and Cyborg.
Attempting to sound calm, Hawkgirl said, "Did any of you actually think to read the rules about transportation?"
"I did," Robin answered. "Twice."
"Then you should know that if a situation arises, you are to inform the Justice League."
"They were going to be a problem. Our goal was to subdue them," Robin responded, narrowing his eyes. Of course, it had no effect since he wore a mask.
"If the situation is immediate, you are still supposed to inform the Justice League before engaging in physical combat," Hawkgirl hotly shot at the boy.
"I am so sincerely sorry," Robin sarcastically told the Thanagarian. It was as if he was challenging her.
Hawkgirl's gaze intensified, looking all the more intimidating with her mask. "Aside from the disobeying the rules, you still didn't manage to subdue the three villains. Care to explain why?"
Green Lantern tried to place his hand on her shoulder to calm her down but she threateningly raised her mace at him, causing him to take a few steps back.
"Maybe our intention was to hold back and have the media speculate about whether or not this academy is doing a good thing. Then, when the time is right, show them that they couldn't be more wrong. Give them more to talk about," Robin said with a clipped tone.
"Why not give them something positive to say? You outnumbered those crooks and you let them escape! That looks awfully bad, I hope you realize. If another time comes, and you manage to take care of the situation beautifully, there's a high possibility that they'll think it's a hoax."
"Sorry to disappoint," Robin said with a dismissive edge in his voice.
Hawkgirl huffed and made her way to the exit. "Consider this a warning. The next time we don't receive an alert, you lot are going to receive a week's worth of detention."
The Thanagarian angrily left the building. Green Lantern sent the group of teenagers an apologetic smile before following her. His goal was to now calm her before she went on a rampage.
"Dude, what's your problem?" Beast Boy asked Robin, slack-jaw.
In response, Robin stood up and went up the stairs, presumably to his room.
"You know, I blame this on Raven's and Robin's sexual tension issue," Bumblebee said with a straight face.
"Wait, WHAT?" Speedy, Kid Flash, and Aqualad asked simultaneously.
Unamused, Raven slammed her book shut and retreated upstairs to her room.
-Awhile After Lunch-
"You're not trying."
"Yes, I am," Raven gritted out.
Raven was currently with her mentor, working on improving her powers. Even if it sounded impossible, Raven started to dislike Zatanna even more. As of right now, they were practicing magic. Zatanna would utter the incantations for her spells and expected Raven to block the effects of the magic. What made it exceedingly difficult was the fact that Zatanna hardly seemed to breathing since spells were overlapping each other because her incredibly fast speaking pace.
"Let's say you have to face the villain who is a magician. Do you think they're going to give you a break just because you're mentally tiring? No. Of course not," Zatanna said.
"What is your problem?" Raven yelled, completely ignoring how a chair slammed into the wall, breaking into several pieces.
"I'm trying to help you master your powers and yelling at me isn't going to help."
"That's not what I meant. Before I even attended this school, you took a great disliking to me."
"My father died because of creatures of Hell. Seeing as how demons are servants of Hell, I blame them and inevitably, you," Zatanna spat out the confession.
"Do you think I'm proud of who my father is? Of course not!"
"That holds no meaning to me. Your father's bloodline was involved with my father's death."
Raven turned on her heels, hurrying towards the only exit within the large room.
"Where do you think you're going? This mentoring session isn't over!" Zatanna shouted bitterly.
"I'm dismissing myself," Raven sent an obviously fake sickly-sweet smile in Zatanna's general direction before slamming the door shut behind her.
-Meanwhile With Kid Flash-
"I didn't think you were one for sentimentality."
Kid Flash quickly crossed the room. The room was beautiful, albeit small. It was a place in this school where students could get away from reality for a few moments of pure bliss. The room was similar to a simulation room. However, instead of robots coming after you, it showed the excessive beauty that could be found on Earth. People just hardly seemed to notice it. Here, in space, it was absolutely breathtaking. With considerable grace, Kid Flash sat down on the ground next to Jesse Quick.
"I'm usually not," Jesse admitted. "There's just so much arguing in Class Tenderfoot. It's enough to drive a girl insane, I can tell you that."
"Well, we certainly wouldn't want that to happen, would we?" Kid Flash smiled cheekily at the blonde.
Rolling her eyes, Jesse pushed him. He pushed back and it continued on for a few minutes. Like children, they burst out into a fit of laughter.
Once her laugh had finally subsided, Jesse told him, "You act like a little kid."
"Hey! You started it!"
"I didn't say anything about me acting like a kid. I already know that I do on various occasions."
"So, I have a question," Kid Flash slowly said.
"And what may that be?"
"Will you do the honor of accompanying me to Central City and unleashing our inner goofiness to the world?"
Jesse laughed. "I would love to."
-Meanwhile With Cyborg-
"Do you need some help with that?"
Cyborg was currently roaming around the halls, waiting for the time to come when he was supposed to be meet with his mentor, Atom. In this one particular hallway, he noticed the woman who had been in Martian Manhunter's class, Sarah Simms, trying to push this cart that looked pretty heavy. Naturally, he offered her some assistance.
"Well, I certainly wouldn't mind some help," she replied. When he took the heavy cart from her, she flashed him a smile of gratitude.
"So, what's in here, exactly?" Cyborg asked, referring to the cart that was covered with a black drape.
"Some complicated technology parts. I'm pretty sure it wouldn't hold any of your interest."
"Actually, I would love to hear about it. I've been intrigued with technology ever since... well..." Cyborg broke off, reliving his first moments as a freak of nature. He cringed.
"You don't have to tell me if you don't want to. After all, we don't even know each other. My name is Sarah, by the way. I thought I'd introduce myself personally." She smiled.
"Cyborg," he told her, giving her a faint smile.
"Anyway, I'm free tomorrow. If you want, I'll explain all this stuff to you."
"I would be delighted."
In a few minutes they stopped in front of a room. Cyborg followed her inside and learned that this was her office. He placed the large cart in the area where she had instructed him to put it.
Sarah went over to her desk and scribbled something down a scrap of paper. She handed him the piece of paper and he realized that it was her cell phone number.
"Call me tomorrow. I'll bring you up here and we can dorkily discuss technology," she said.
"Dorkily?"
"Well, maybe I was a little too harsh. At least it's not Dungeons and Dragons."
This resulted in a laugh from Cyborg. He watched as she lifted up a stack of papers. She walked around him and accidentally tripped from the leg of a chair that was nearby. Sarah fell and the papers became scattered all over of the floor.
Upon instinct, Cyborg dropped down and began helping her pick up the papers. They reached for the same paper and their hands brush. According to Cyborg, it felt as if an electrical current ran through his veins. The two of them looked up, gazing into each other's eyes. Slowly, a smile spread across their faces. This was the start of a new friendship.
-Meanwhile With Beast Boy-
Beast Boy skipped around the accessible parts of the school. He was awfully bored. His mentor had bailed on him and postponed their mentoring session for next week. Beast Boy supposed that he should be glad since he would have less work to do, but he had nothing to do today. There were the homework assignments that he should probably get finished and the heavy textbooks that he should probably get around to reading, but where would the fun be in that? Plus, playing video games seemed to have no special allure to him when he was all by himself. Therefore, he pranced around the academy, trying to look like he was cool and had something to do. It failed epically in all its epically failing proportions.
In this one hallway, he saw this one girl walking away in the opposite direction. Seeing a chance to make friends, Beast Boy quickly bounded up to her.
The girl was extraordinarily skinny. Her hair was blonde and it cascaded gracefully past her shoulders. The skin color she possessed was pale, but not necessarily unhealthy. Her eyes were a blue like the ocean. Her costume she wore consisted of a long-sleeved black turtleneck with a T logo in the center of it, yellow shorts with a rough belt, dark tennis shoes, and light brown gloves. Beast Boy thought she looked extraordinarily ordinary, but that seemed to add to her appeal.
"Hey! Do you think mopeds are nifty?" Beast Boy asked.
"My friend's five year old brother has one," she replied dismissively, not answering his question.
Beast Boy's jaw dropped. Kids nowadays were so spoiled. It was so unfair! He watched the blonde girl exit the corridor, causing him to make up his mind. He would pursue the chase.
-Meanwhile With Raven-
When Raven entered the Class Titan tower, she looked mad as hell. Speedy, who was flipping through channels on the television, flinched when he met her gaze.
"What's wrong with you?" Speedy questioned, deciding to be brave.
"I would prefer not to talk about it," she replied, taking the steps of the stairs two at a time.
Instead of locking herself away in her room as she planned, Raven found herself standing in front of a certain someone's room. Hesitantly, she knocked three times.
Robin opened the door, preparing himself to tell whoever it was to scram. When he realized that it was Raven, he instantly stowed away those kind of thoughts.
Before Robin could say something, Raven surprised him by saying only four words.
"I changed my mind."
A/N - Favorite part? Least favorite part? Hate? Like? Anything you want to see in the upcoming chapters? Let me know in the reviews.
In case anybody was wondering, I do not have anything against gingers in regards to that one comment in this chapter. My cousin is a ginger and she's really cool. Then, there's this really sweet ginger I'm fortunate to know and I almost dated him. I kind of regret not going out with him. Anyhoo, I have nothing against gingers whatsoever. Also, I really wanted to post another chapter before I had to go back to school, so therefore I decided to write another chapter. This chapter is going to correspond with the following chapters, particularly with Raven and Robin. Anyway, I have a plot developing in my head that I have a feeling you guys will like. Expect to see it in the next chapter.
Questions To Think About:
Will the jacket ever come up in a conversation with the other members of Class Titan?
Do people really hate the people in Class Titan?
Will Superman discover the tampered reports?
What is Catwoman's goal?
Where do Wonder Woman and Batman stand?
What was up with Robin when he was arguing with Hawkgirl?
Will Zatanna's and Raven's relationship improve?
Why was Raven so edgy during her mentoring session?
Will Kid Flash and Jesse Quick start going out?
How will Kid Flash's and Jesse Quick's outing go?
What's going to happen between Cyborg and Sarah Simms?
Will Beast Boy get himself killed by pursuing the blonde girl?
How will Robin react to Raven's words?
If Robin and Raven do go out to Jump City, how will their little date... er, outing, go?
Thanks for reading!
