X.
Disclaimer: I don't own these characters.
What do you think, finish for Christmas?
Raven woke up two days later in a panic. Despite her best efforts, she could think of no more ways to compare Robin and bananas. And today it was due. She looked at her clock.
February 14, 6:59 AM.
She had precisely seventeen hours to finish her project.
Oh, and wasn't there some significance to this day? Other than her project being due. There was something, she remembered it vaguely.
She walked downstairs, poured herself a cup of herbal tea, took a banana out from behind her cloak, and ate it. I really have been getting fond of bananas, she said. I never used to eat them so regularly.
Robin was, as usual, awake, and drinking coffee in the next room. She walked in. "Morning," she said.
"Morning, Raven." He smiled at her and put down the file he was reading. "Happy Valentine's Day."
She blushed. Ah. That was what she'd forgotten.
"I don't do Valentine's…"
He took a gift-wrapped box out of his utility belt and handed it to her. She looked at it suspiciously, but his face was quite innocently happy.
"Well," she said, "I suppose I could make an exception." And she opened it. Then, she looked up at him, amused.
"Banana-flavored chocolates. How long did it take you to find these?" she asked.
"Not too long," he said. "It was worth it. Your banana obsession, after all…"
"For my list," she said.
"Still, you have to admit. It's kind of weird that you're showing so much dedication to it."
A light bulb went off in Raven's head.
97. It's weird to write a 100 comparisons list about either.
Who would compare bananas to anything? And who would compare Robin to anything, especially for a school assignment?
98. It's even weirder to write one about both.
On their own, either Robin or a banana would be an eccentric choice for a comparison list. But both—how bizarre is that?
Raven went back downstairs, to find Robin packing some things into his utility belt. He looked up as she came in.
"Come on," he said. "Let's go out somewhere."
Raven hesitated. "Not that I don't want to…"
"This is already going better than I thought it would," he said. She pretended to glare at him.
"…but I do have that paper due today," she finished.
"I'm sure inspiration will come," he said. "You only get one chance a year to mock all those lovebirds."
"Aren't you one of those lovebirds, Robin?" she said. "I'm sure Starfire will be around any second now looking for you." That did seem to take him aback. Almost a little too much so. She tried to change the subject. "And now you're advocating procrastination?"
"Starfire might not wake up until tonight," he said. It wasn't that great of an excuse, but she wasn't going to press it. "And it's all so I can spend time with," he bowed, "my fellow lovebird Raven."
He leaned in, and gave her what seemed to be a seductive look. It wasn't, of course. Of course not. She couldn't help her autonomous nervous system's reaction, right, couldn't stop her heart pounding and being acutely aware of her breathing.
"Please," he whispered.
Raven decided to hell with the paper.
"Where to?"
"This restaurant again?" asked Raven.
They sat in the Crown Restaurant for lunch.
"It's for thematic symmetry," Robin said.
Raven rolled her eyes. "As if our lives are a story or something."
"Every life is a story," said Robin.
"I guess," said Raven. "Did you need to put it so dramatically?"
A waiter brought them a heart-shaped cake. Raven looked at Robin suspiciously. He shrugged.
"What do you expect them to have on Valentine's Day?"
She wasn't entirely convinced it wasn't a prank. But it was good cake.
"You're taking me to the circus?" asked Raven.
"Yeah," said Robin. "Something wrong with that?"
"Well…" She hesitated. "I just thought you might not be so comfortable, since… you know." She cleared her throat. "What you told me."
"I've got to make peace with it sometime, Raven," he said. He gave a not-quite convincing smile. "Over and over, actually. Every year."
She impulsively put her arm around him. He spilled his drink, stiffened, convulsed, looked frightened, shifted into Titans-go stance, and finally relaxed.
"Thanks," he said quietly.
"…if I don't want to be taken here with Starfire, why would I want to make a 'sojourn to the mall of shopping' with you?"
"Because you loathe my costume? I'm offering you a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to change it up," he said.
Raven considered, rubbing her chin.
"Not that I'm a fashion expert or anything," she said.
"I'm willing," he said, "to suffer for the greater good."
"And what's that?"
"Avoiding those piercing comments on my manhood, which are the Dark Angel's specialty," he said theatrically.
"Dark Angel?" she said, trying to maintain a nonchalant expression.
"You know it," he said. "Do your worst."
"Not the mask, I suppose."
"Anything but that."
She continued to rub her chin, but a devious smile had crept onto her face. "Do my worst, you say."
"I guess I did say to do your worst."
"Yes. You sure did."
"The jeans were normal, but why do I have to wear this shirt? I look like a Fallout Boy groupie on crystal meth."
"You said anything."
"I didn't mean this!"
"But your bangs are so… emo."
"I hope you can see this glare from under them."
"Fine. Wear the stupid 'Starry Night' shirt."
"But we're in the middle of the street now. I can't change."
"So why are you complaining if you're not going to do anything about it?"
Shrug. "To be the most annoying creature on the face of this planet?"
"Don't worry. Beast Boy is still alive."
Robin sighed. "This hairdo was totally unnecessary."
"I think it's… dashing."
He saw a smile peeking out from under her hood and decided to shut up.
"Wow," she said. "Elaborate."
"Thanks," he said.
Robin had, in the end, taken her to one final place, a giant library, or bookstore, or something. It was just rows and rows of extremely old-looking books, with leathery covers and bumpy spines. She wasn't sure exactly why there wasn't anyone else there, though.
"Why isn't there anyone else?" she asked in a whisper. It seemed weird to talk loudly here, after all.
"I pulled some strings," he said. "I didn't know exactly what you wanted, so I thought… what could it hurt if there were a few more than you could read at once?"
She looked at him inscrutably. "That was," she said, "really thoughtful."
He smiled at her. "I have a lot of thoughts to be full of."
"You're definitely full of something, Boy Wonder."
"Charm?"
"Smarm."
"No harm in that."
Raven rolled her eyes.
Raven and Robin left the library hours later, a stack of books floating behind them as they walked back to the tower.
Six pm. Only six more hours until it's over. Six more, she thought.
Apparently she'd thought it aloud. "Haven't I heard that before?" asked Robin.
"This time it's more panic about it than wanting it to end," Raven said. "My assignment is due in six hours."
"Oh," said Robin. "You mean your list? Can I help?"
"I don't really know what you could do," she said. "Dress even more fruit-like, maybe."
"If it'd help," he said. Raven thought for a moment. It didn't really have much to do with the paper, but, maybe…?
"Come with me," she said, taking his arm.
A high bluff overlooked the raging sea outside Titans Tower. A pile of rocks lay next to a ridge. The evening air was cold, yet particularly unfitting for February, more like an autumn's cold, almost. Waves crashed.
Raven concentrated briefly and the pile of rocks separated into a long stairway up into the clouds. Her hand shook—well, she was cold. There was, after all, no reason for her to be nervous.
"Go ahead," she said. "Take the stairs up. I'll meet you at the top."
Robin looked at her oddly as she started to fly upwards. "Can't you just telepo…"
She had already flown out of sight.
"Gee, thanks," he said to the open air. Too distracted?
He surveyed the rocks. They looked incredibly unstable and the sea below looked dangerous.
Over the last few weeks he'd really gotten to know Raven. And he was intrigued. He wanted more. She was an enigma. She was withdrawn, but sometimes her wit couldn't be suppressed. She was sarcastic, but sometimes so… vulnerable, too. She didn't like to talk about her problems, but she would move mountains, literally, if he, or her friends, really needed her.
He looked again at the floating staircase.
Getting past this barrier would entail care and diligence, unswerving attention, and…
And… what?
Casting a glance sideways, he stepped onto the first rock and started to go up.
Raven floated several hundred feet above the island, feeling around carefully for the large, smooth rock in the canyon with her powers.
She'd wanted a meditation post in the clouds for a long time, but always dismissed it as more of a fantasy than anything. Then—after Robin had mentioned a safe place where she could go—she'd gone into the canyon and found a twenty-foot- diameter rock, naturally eroded, smooth, and, probably, safe, and brought it up.
She'd been up there twice now, in a particularly foul mood, she would haul out her rock, go with it to four hundred feet, survey the terrain, and sit down on the rock, safely corralled in a black grip. It wasn't likely that anyone else would ever find it; she made it safely under cloud cover and too low for radar or planes, but too high for casual observers.
And now, she was going to show Robin.
It was a spur-of-the-moment decision, but she'd been paying so much attention to him (and bananas) for the last six weeks. She thought that their connection, always fairly strong, if hidden, had somehow changed; and she didn't really know what it was anymore.
Well, if she was being honest with herself, she knew what she, somewhere, deep down, hoped it was. But she also knew that it couldn't be, because… well, what about Starfire? That was a niggling question, all right. But somehow she'd forgotten Starfire. For the last while, she'd been preoccupied.
Raven wondered at herself. Something's changed around here, she repeatedly thought.
Red X crept up to the Tower, rappelled up the side, and sprayed something over the window on the third floor. Their security's worthless. Building's too big, island's too small—too many windows.
The glass finished melting away and Red X slipped in, landing quietly in a storage room, as he'd suspected. There might be minor technological treasures in here—by the looks of it, the boxes were Cyborg's.
But he had to keep his eye on the goal. He'd have used the star mirror before but couldn't draw attention—nothing like a laser beam from the sky to spoil your cover.
No one should be on this floor. All the better.
Chances were, Robin would be keeping such a sensitive piece of equipment in his room, in a vault, or else on his person. When Red X got it, the TERRA would be complete. And as soon as he could finish his TERRA… well, there would be money in it. Other consequences could wait until later.
Red X spotted a computer terminal and quickly sliced in—Cyborg's codes weren't breakable by brute force or by Red's current equipment, but schematics of the Tower were available easily…
If it were in a vault, it would be on floor eight. The vault by Robin's room. Probably where the Red X gear was stored too.
"Kid," he murmured, "don't store all your eggs in one basket."
Raven anxiously brushed off the rock again, making sure it wasn't loose, couldn't fall—making sure her control wasn't actively necessary to keep the rock stable and floating.
Robin. Could he maybe… But Starfire was her best friend. Control, peace, harmony, tranquility. If only she knew what she wanted. And… what he wanted. It was… confusing.
Maybe she lived for these moments of uncertainty. Maybe everyone did. In the moment before a roller coaster dove down, Cyborg, who enjoyed those contraptions, had once told her that he felt the terror of being alive and not knowing what was going to happen—even though his processor would invariably tell him it would be safe. Safety was what Raven had always sought, but now here she was… embracing uncertainty.
No, Robin hadn't been so foolish. The vault was impregnable, but Robin's inter-Tower messages weren't; and they gave clear notice that either he or his second-in-command would carry the AZAR at all times.
Judging by the name of the device, Robin's second-in-command would be Raven. A far more… stimulating person to be around, for Red X. But neither was in the Tower right now, it seemed.
They couldn't be out on a case, could they? No, they wouldn't be out on a mission without the others…
Red X climbed out of the window and down the side of the building, looking around a little aimlessly.
What could they be doing out together? Surely not—
Well, Raven had always struck him as Robin's type… or at least, Robin had struck him as Raven's type… or at least, Robin had struck him with a bo staff. Both of Robin's female teammates were charming girls, of course, but Starfire was the kind you would use a pickup line on, whereas Raven was the kind you would meet in a cave on the side of a mountain five hundred miles from anyone. He himself had had the occasional fantasy of being a hero, standing at the peak of mountains and…
Now that he thought about it, what the hell was a pile of rocks doing on the promontory, stretching into the clouds? These are the kind of things you're going to have to notice if you're going to break into the big leagues, he told himself. In fact—what was that on the top rock? Some kind of fizzing black sparks…
Well, that was a gimme.