Chapter Ten
"Make it larger? Just knock out some walls and rebuild them farther away." Raven said, seeming perplexed by Nightwing's fairly obvious request.
"Making it bigger on the inside than on the outside… You know, a Tesseract."
"Magic could do that… But I've never tried such a complex spell. It would require not just bending the laws of physics but breaking them and rewriting them in the specific area of the room." Raven said.
"I would have to do some research before I could promise you anything… Couldn't your Biological Manipulation make a room that could expand in size, though?"
"Yes. It could. But I've already coated the walls in biomass to make it resistant to all of our attacks. It will absorb and redistribute the force of any attack that hits it so that it does very little damage in any one area." Dick said.
"Well, I'll look at the training room, but I always thought that it was big enough as it was." Raven said, going down the stairs and looking around the room, amazed at what Dick had already done with it.
"How do you make it work?" Raven asked. Dick stepped forward. "Training Program! Activate. Random enemy. Level 3. Confirm." He said.
Random enemy level 3 confirmed. The computer said. Raven's eyes widened as a biomass copy of a man with green hair and a bleached face and ruby red lips and a woman with a harlequin face and a baseball bat came out of the floor.
"Heya! Birdie boy!" The man said. The girl looked slavishly at the man, hugging him tightly.
"Raven, this is the Joker, and his… Assistant, the erstwhile Doctor Harleen Quinzel."
"Hey! That's Harley Quinn to you, Bird Brain!" She said in a thick Brooklyn accent. Raven shuddered at the tone of voice she spoke in.
"Program, terminate." Nightwing said. The biomass villains were sucked back into the floor.
"It can go anywhere from level 1, which is the approximate power level of an average human. 3 is an average superhero or villain. 5 is someone approximately on the level of Batman. 7 would be Superman or someone of his apparent power. 10 would be a superbeing who was omnipotent or nearly so. The system isn't perfect. I'm still working on it. But I feel like we would be better suited if we had about 100 more feet in every direction." Nightwing said. Raven looked around.
"It seems fine to me. You're worrying over nothing, Nightwing." Raven said, looking disgruntled about him wasting her time like this. "Listen, Dick… I love you, and I understand your perfectionism… But… Sometimes you need to let things go. Sometimes 'good enough' really is good enough." She said with a laugh. Nightwing blushed slightly. He didn't get to see Raven laugh very often, or smile for that matter. She was always pretty, but she was positively radiant when she smiled.
"I love you too, Raven." Nightwing said, taking off his mask and kissing her on the lips. Unfortunately, just as he was doing this, the rest of the Titans walked down the stairs and saw the two of them in their embrace, and exclaiming at what they saw.
"Dude!" Beast Boy shouted, causing Raven to shove Nightwing off of her, her eyes glowing bright red.
"Raven! You do have 'the boyfriend!'" Starfire shouted happily, not seeming to be upset at all that she was dating Nightwing. Raven blushed.
"Listen, Starfire… I'm sorry I'm…" Raven began. Starfire hugged her tightly, though.
"No! No! I am so happy for you!" Starfire said. Her tone was so genuine that Raven couldn't feel too guilty, especially when Starfire was levitating off the ground, and embracing her in a bone crushing hug.
"Yo, Nightwing! You have good taste in women!" Cyborg said, grinning and giving Nightwing a thumbs up, much to Raven's annoyance. Beast Boy and Cyborg either didn't notice or didn't care, though.
"Hey, Terra… This is pretty surprising, right?" Beast Boy asked. Terra smiled nervously, and the rest of the team turned to her.
"You knew? Why didn't you say anything?" Beast Boy asked.
"One, because it's none of your business… And two, because Raven asked me not to. If she wanted to tell you, she would have. Since she didn't, it wasn't my place to do so. And three, because I knew, and so did Raven, probably, that you would react like this! I like you, Beast Boy, but you have no tact!"
"Tacks? Why would I need tacks?"
"Tact! Tact! It means sensitivity and grace in social situations! You, too, Cy…" Terra shouted exasperatedly. The three former Robins all looked at Terra. She was an intense girl, but they wondered why she cared so much about Beast Boy not knowing the definition of a word.
"Sorry… Sorry…" Terra said, taking a deep breath, and trying to calm down. "Sorry we bothered you, Robin… I mean Nightwing…!" Terra added, pulling Beast Boy with her up the stairs.
"We are sorry we bothered you, Nightwing." Starfire said, levitating up the stairs and closing the door behind her. Raven sighed, and looked out across the room.
"If I'm to be expected to make the room larger, I'll need to study some more magic. I can't just make it happen right now. I'm not experienced enough." She said.
"Well… That was only part of why I asked you down here. I've… Never been as good at this as Bruce is. He's almost… Pathologically good at flirting with and then subsequently bedding women. I know we essentially are… Y-you know… But… Well… Would you… Go out with me?"
Raven found herself smiling, lightly laughing at Dick's awkwardness. She did know that they were for all intents and purposes going out.
They had skipped a few steps the first night. And neither of them had said before now that there was anything official between them. Others had figured out that there basically was. It was kind of nice to hear it said officially, though. It confirmed something for her. It confirmed that he really did mean what he said, and that he really did like her. And that meant more to her than he knew.
It was kind of cute how awkward he was. She had always assumed that the billionaire playboy had taught Dick something other than fighting crime. But in seeing his early interactions with Starfire, and now his attempts at asking Raven out, it was obvious that Dick had been an apprentice first, and a son second to Bruce. She would have to have a talk with Bruce someday. Not now, though. She kissed Dick, embracing him and sitting down with him.
"Of course I'll go out with you. We've kind of skipped a few steps. But that's not important right now, I guess." Raven said, smiling more widely than she could ever remember herself doing, and more genuinely for that matter.