Chapter 21: Frail Rose
A/N** I wrote a horror fic for Halloween, even if it's like 3 days late. ^_^ It's in the cartoon section... or you can just click my name. lol. ^_^
They stared at each other, both eyes were wide.
"How... when. were you here?!" Robin interrogated. Raven clenched her fist.
"I just found them like this. How could you think that I didn't stop any of it?" Raven yelled. She glared at him for a few seconds until his eyes showed regret.
"Sorry," he muttered. "I can't help it. It's distressing to find your team mates turned to stone."
Raven nodded. She then stared past him and started to walk down stairs to the door leading to the computer lab.
"Where do you think you're going?" Robin asked.
"To find the person who caused this," she stated simply. He ran next to her and took her hand. She rejected it by pulling away.
"You're with Starfire. That means no hugging me, no kissing me and no holding my hand," she snarled. Robin didn't withdraw but kept holding her hand. "Robin. didn't you hear me?" They stood still as he inched closer.
"Raven," he whispered. She couldn't resist. Robin had broken down all her defenses. He slowly let go of her hand as he held her tight to his chest.
"What're you doing?" she asked him in a small, soft voice. She grew weak as he held her even closer.
"I want you to know that I meant it when I said I loved you," Robin smiled, recalling the day when Raven was stuck in the hospital.
"Said you loved me? When?" Raven asked. He blushed and remembered that she wasn't awake. He shook his head.
"Er- nothing, I was just thinking out loud," Robin covered.
"Oh. I see," Raven whispered again.
Robin held onto her for another few minutes until Raven interrupted.
"I think we should go search now," she stated. Her forehead was still laid against the crook of his neck. She gently pushed away and looked at his face. He smiled at her as she walked out of the door to the computer lab, feeling awkward. Raven was recovering from unexpected bliss. Her face was cooling down from the pink blooming in her cheeks. The words he said whirled in her head. She didn't know what was going to pop out next at her. She shook it off.
Raven was typing away at the key board not knowing Robin was behind her the whole time. She looked up the possible sites Cold Stone could be at but found only two sites. As she was printing out other possible sites, she swiveled around and stood up, reading the choices and bumped into Robin.
"Uh, I found-" she said trying to start a conversation, like he wanted.
"The places? I was standing right here," he declared. "Looks like it's not on earth. another outer space mission I guess. I'm pumped and ready to go!"
"So you've been looking over my shoulders, ok," she shrugged. She pushed past him and teleported with Beastboy and Cyborg to her room. She didn't care if they were in her room, she wanted to protect them. When she teleported back down stairs, she found Robin training.
"Let's go," she said to him. He nodded and followed her to the roof where the jet was. They had gotten a new one since Jinx had destroyed their last one. As Raven sat at the pilot seat, Robin placed a hand on her shoulders. She looked up at him. "What?"
"Are you sure you want to be driving?" Robin asked. She shrugged.
"Yea, why?" she asked to answer his question. Just then, their tele- phone screen initiated and Slade appeared.
"Why are you still alive?!" Robin sneered at the sight of him. Slade chuckled.
"Did you really think that I would die at the hands of a man like him?" Slade inquired, laughing, "I don't think so Robin. Hmmm. Well I only called you for one thing."
"And what did you want to tell us?" Robin cross-examined. Slade smirked.
"Actually, I wanted to introduce you to someone," he acknowledged. "Perhaps you've run into him before. He uses an oval shape pendant to turn mortals to stone. actually; it can turn anyone into stone. And don't underestimate his fighting skills. He's in a higher fighting skill than mine, and Robin, you can barely beat me. So don't think you can save everyone- wait, that's Raven back there. What is she still doing living? Hm, no matter, Cold Stone will get you easily, I assure you. You have very little time. No, this time it's not a decoy, this time it's real. You only have 2 months before they combust after they become stone. Don't try looking here; he's not on earth anymore. I guess my time with you is becoming short as well; soon he'll turn you to stone. Good bye ex- apprentice."
With that, the tele-phone screen automatically switched off, leaving Raven and Robin standing in the jet, looking at it. He, however, clenched his fists into two balls. She placed a hand on his shoulders.
"It's Slade." Robin announced. Raven watched him. "We have to destroy him this time!"
"Last time we almost defeated him, Robin; there were other times when we almost beat him," Raven said glumly, "We might not beat him now, but in the future we will." She only said what was true. Robin grew furious at the thought of not putting him to where he belonged and grabbed Raven's shoulders. He looked into her hollow eyes.
"Don't you dare say that! Don't you ever say that! We can get him this time," Robin then clawed his fingers into Raven's leotard almost ripping it to reveal her pale, soft skin. He threw her against the curved metal walls and stormed into the back where the outlined plans were kept. As he made his way into the bed room, he flipped over the desk.
"Robin," Raven stated clearly. He turned around to see her struggling to get up. He had been so angry that he hurt her. Robin ran sighed and walked into the bedroom where he met Raven. She had teleported from where she was thrown.
"Er- Raven." he tried to apologized. Raven looked at him. He cringed in his mind.
"You're way over your head," Raven told, "I believe that you can beat Slade, but we're not running a race against him right now, we're running a race against time. Either you help, or I do it alone and watch you cower like the leader you are."
"We are running a race against him; he's watching our every move. I can't let him kill the others!" he cried out. "This happened before. I can't let it happen again. Not to Starfire." Raven gritted her teeth.
"You had to do it or else we would've been dead right now! It was the right thing to do, even if it hurt Starfire, even if it made her be emotionally intact!"
"It hurt you too, didn't it? I remembered, seeing the hollowness in your eyes, Raven," he said, looking at her face. She bit her lip. "You cried for me too. You hid it so well by fighting against me. I was glad, or else all of you died. I didn't want to fight Starfire though, so I fought you." Raven stepped back.
"You fought me to protect Starfire?" Raven developed anger from deep with in. Robin shamefully nodded. "I did everything for you along time ago, I still do! I got you out of the mess when we were leaving Slade's hide-out. I let you go find him, but I didn't know why you were his apprentice, now I do. But, you had to show your love for Starfire?"
Raven took a deep breath in and turned, walking out of the door, leaving him to hang on her every word.
"So I guess I'm not that important, huh?" she whispered, passing him before she did walk out of the door. He heard a door slam as she flew out to the city's Space-Port. He sighed and got in the pilot's seat of the jet and followed her.
When Raven saw Robin flying behind her, she stood still for a second and teleported. Robin growled and sped up. When he set it down, he saw Raven talking with the manager of the space-port. She had her hood up and gestured her hand towards the back of the port's parking lot. While he walked over, Raven was finished and kept going straight to their personal rocket.
"Raven, can I-" Robin began but Raven glided inside the rocket and closed the door. He growled at his behavior from earlier. He punched in a few keys on the gate opener and let him self in.
"We're leaving now, Terran, please warm the engine," Raven asked loudly. They nodded on the visual intercom and started everything. A few minutes after they got there, the set-up crew started to prepare everything as did the people in the control room.
"Hey, Teen Titans, if you wait for a few hours, that'd be great," Terran, the manager of the Teen Titan's air-ships section, said. They nodded. "Oh, and, maybe you could brush up on your flight skills eh?" They, once again, nodded at her.
After 6 quick hours of training on fighting and flying the rocket, they stopped and decided Robin was hungry. Raven sat there, looking out the window, thinking of what they could do to find the man. She thought again.
'I don't know how long it will take to find that guy, but I'm guessing it'll take about 3 weeks at the least. When we get back, they'll probably be dead!' She thought. She teleported to the tower and grabbed onto Starfire, bringing her on board then repeated with Beastboy and Cyborg.
"Where were you?" Robin said as he shoved food in his mouth as if he had just eaten in three weeks.
"Making sure the rest of our team won't die while we're on the trip," Raven responded.
"Okay," he said.
"I'll be going outside," Raven confirmed, he bobbed his head. While she was outside, she started meditating. 45 minutes later, she was disturbed by Robin.
"Azarath, metrion, zinthos. Azarath, metrion, zinthos," she repeated. It was almost record breaking. She felt a tap on her shoulder and she shudder with anger. "What?!"
"Raven?" he queried. He stood next to her floating figure and put a hand on her shoulder, "Raven, if we don't survive-"
"Who said we weren't going to survive?" Raven questioned. He looked at her through his mask, the mask he never took off. He smirked and looked at the sun half way down, from the noon point.
"Yeah, I guess we'll live through this," he shook his head up and down.
"And we'll find a way to bring our friends back to a human form," she added. He nodded again.
"Yeah," Robin agreed. He continued with heart-fluttering words, "Yeah, but Raven."
"What?" she tried to meditate again but was disturbed every now and then. She figured that she wasn't going to meditate and forced her feet down on the ground.
"Raven, if anything happened to either of us, I want you to know that I care for you," Robin smiled. Raven, how ever started to blush, "And I want you to know that I love you."
"Ahem, as a friend?" Raven suggested. He shrugged.
"I guess," he smiled. "Here," he supplemented. He took her hand and forced an object in it. Raven closed her eyes, not wanting embarrassment to flow through. She squeezed her fist, afraid to see what it was, but was poked by the object.
She opened both her eyes and hand to find a dried rose. Even if it was dead, it was beautiful. The faded red grew from the inside and the black- red of it was still on the edges. Roses were her favorite type of flower. It was said to be a weed, but she thought of it as delightful. She smiled and smelled the rose. The sweet scent surrounded her nose. Its frail form was gently placed into her hands. Raven looked at the rose once more, but back to Robin.
"Thank you," she whispered in her quiet voice. He edged towards her as she looked at the simplicity of the charming rose. "How'd you know a rose was my favorite flower?"
"I know you a lot more than you think," he smiled again. She looked at the rose once more.
"When did you get this? How? A dark, deep rose costs too much," she explained.
"I know. It was for your funeral, but since you're alive, I thought you wanted it. I know its dead, but it's still beautiful," he said. 'Like you,' he thought. Robin continued, "And I ordered this."
"Thank you," Raven repeated. Being so close to kissing her, he withdrew and hugged her. She blushed and was too scared to hug him. A silent tear slipped down his face and onto her shoulder. "You're crying? Why is that?"
"I don't want to lose you," he replied. She smiled. He was slowly progressing in expressing his love, as she was too.
"We should go now, I think they're ready-" she began. Robin shook his head and held onto her tighter. She blushed as a fiery glow ran across both her cheeks.
"It doesn't matter if aren't in love with each other, Raven, it only matters if you're by my side," he whispered into her hair. She tried hugging him back but she knew it wasn't right. "I guess then, we should go."
However, Robin didn't let go and she didn't reject. He held her closer, tighter to his heart and soul. She had lay her head on his shoulder and smiled once again. She sub-consciously dropped the rose and hugged him back. In the setting sun, everything seemed perfect for that moment.
As minutes passed by, Raven let go and smiled at him. He smiled back. She then teleported to the rocket and got ready at the control center of it. He picked up the rose and looked at it once more. He grinned and walked over towards the rocket.
When they were inside, Raven blushed every time they came near each other. Robin diverted his eyes somewhere, all the while, smiling on the inside.
"So let's go find a cure, eh?" Robin insisted. Raven nodded and set off the timer to blast off.
"Sure."
A/N** I wrote a horror fic for Halloween, even if it's like 3 days late. ^_^ It's in the cartoon section... or you can just click my name. lol. ^_^
They stared at each other, both eyes were wide.
"How... when. were you here?!" Robin interrogated. Raven clenched her fist.
"I just found them like this. How could you think that I didn't stop any of it?" Raven yelled. She glared at him for a few seconds until his eyes showed regret.
"Sorry," he muttered. "I can't help it. It's distressing to find your team mates turned to stone."
Raven nodded. She then stared past him and started to walk down stairs to the door leading to the computer lab.
"Where do you think you're going?" Robin asked.
"To find the person who caused this," she stated simply. He ran next to her and took her hand. She rejected it by pulling away.
"You're with Starfire. That means no hugging me, no kissing me and no holding my hand," she snarled. Robin didn't withdraw but kept holding her hand. "Robin. didn't you hear me?" They stood still as he inched closer.
"Raven," he whispered. She couldn't resist. Robin had broken down all her defenses. He slowly let go of her hand as he held her tight to his chest.
"What're you doing?" she asked him in a small, soft voice. She grew weak as he held her even closer.
"I want you to know that I meant it when I said I loved you," Robin smiled, recalling the day when Raven was stuck in the hospital.
"Said you loved me? When?" Raven asked. He blushed and remembered that she wasn't awake. He shook his head.
"Er- nothing, I was just thinking out loud," Robin covered.
"Oh. I see," Raven whispered again.
Robin held onto her for another few minutes until Raven interrupted.
"I think we should go search now," she stated. Her forehead was still laid against the crook of his neck. She gently pushed away and looked at his face. He smiled at her as she walked out of the door to the computer lab, feeling awkward. Raven was recovering from unexpected bliss. Her face was cooling down from the pink blooming in her cheeks. The words he said whirled in her head. She didn't know what was going to pop out next at her. She shook it off.
Raven was typing away at the key board not knowing Robin was behind her the whole time. She looked up the possible sites Cold Stone could be at but found only two sites. As she was printing out other possible sites, she swiveled around and stood up, reading the choices and bumped into Robin.
"Uh, I found-" she said trying to start a conversation, like he wanted.
"The places? I was standing right here," he declared. "Looks like it's not on earth. another outer space mission I guess. I'm pumped and ready to go!"
"So you've been looking over my shoulders, ok," she shrugged. She pushed past him and teleported with Beastboy and Cyborg to her room. She didn't care if they were in her room, she wanted to protect them. When she teleported back down stairs, she found Robin training.
"Let's go," she said to him. He nodded and followed her to the roof where the jet was. They had gotten a new one since Jinx had destroyed their last one. As Raven sat at the pilot seat, Robin placed a hand on her shoulders. She looked up at him. "What?"
"Are you sure you want to be driving?" Robin asked. She shrugged.
"Yea, why?" she asked to answer his question. Just then, their tele- phone screen initiated and Slade appeared.
"Why are you still alive?!" Robin sneered at the sight of him. Slade chuckled.
"Did you really think that I would die at the hands of a man like him?" Slade inquired, laughing, "I don't think so Robin. Hmmm. Well I only called you for one thing."
"And what did you want to tell us?" Robin cross-examined. Slade smirked.
"Actually, I wanted to introduce you to someone," he acknowledged. "Perhaps you've run into him before. He uses an oval shape pendant to turn mortals to stone. actually; it can turn anyone into stone. And don't underestimate his fighting skills. He's in a higher fighting skill than mine, and Robin, you can barely beat me. So don't think you can save everyone- wait, that's Raven back there. What is she still doing living? Hm, no matter, Cold Stone will get you easily, I assure you. You have very little time. No, this time it's not a decoy, this time it's real. You only have 2 months before they combust after they become stone. Don't try looking here; he's not on earth anymore. I guess my time with you is becoming short as well; soon he'll turn you to stone. Good bye ex- apprentice."
With that, the tele-phone screen automatically switched off, leaving Raven and Robin standing in the jet, looking at it. He, however, clenched his fists into two balls. She placed a hand on his shoulders.
"It's Slade." Robin announced. Raven watched him. "We have to destroy him this time!"
"Last time we almost defeated him, Robin; there were other times when we almost beat him," Raven said glumly, "We might not beat him now, but in the future we will." She only said what was true. Robin grew furious at the thought of not putting him to where he belonged and grabbed Raven's shoulders. He looked into her hollow eyes.
"Don't you dare say that! Don't you ever say that! We can get him this time," Robin then clawed his fingers into Raven's leotard almost ripping it to reveal her pale, soft skin. He threw her against the curved metal walls and stormed into the back where the outlined plans were kept. As he made his way into the bed room, he flipped over the desk.
"Robin," Raven stated clearly. He turned around to see her struggling to get up. He had been so angry that he hurt her. Robin ran sighed and walked into the bedroom where he met Raven. She had teleported from where she was thrown.
"Er- Raven." he tried to apologized. Raven looked at him. He cringed in his mind.
"You're way over your head," Raven told, "I believe that you can beat Slade, but we're not running a race against him right now, we're running a race against time. Either you help, or I do it alone and watch you cower like the leader you are."
"We are running a race against him; he's watching our every move. I can't let him kill the others!" he cried out. "This happened before. I can't let it happen again. Not to Starfire." Raven gritted her teeth.
"You had to do it or else we would've been dead right now! It was the right thing to do, even if it hurt Starfire, even if it made her be emotionally intact!"
"It hurt you too, didn't it? I remembered, seeing the hollowness in your eyes, Raven," he said, looking at her face. She bit her lip. "You cried for me too. You hid it so well by fighting against me. I was glad, or else all of you died. I didn't want to fight Starfire though, so I fought you." Raven stepped back.
"You fought me to protect Starfire?" Raven developed anger from deep with in. Robin shamefully nodded. "I did everything for you along time ago, I still do! I got you out of the mess when we were leaving Slade's hide-out. I let you go find him, but I didn't know why you were his apprentice, now I do. But, you had to show your love for Starfire?"
Raven took a deep breath in and turned, walking out of the door, leaving him to hang on her every word.
"So I guess I'm not that important, huh?" she whispered, passing him before she did walk out of the door. He heard a door slam as she flew out to the city's Space-Port. He sighed and got in the pilot's seat of the jet and followed her.
When Raven saw Robin flying behind her, she stood still for a second and teleported. Robin growled and sped up. When he set it down, he saw Raven talking with the manager of the space-port. She had her hood up and gestured her hand towards the back of the port's parking lot. While he walked over, Raven was finished and kept going straight to their personal rocket.
"Raven, can I-" Robin began but Raven glided inside the rocket and closed the door. He growled at his behavior from earlier. He punched in a few keys on the gate opener and let him self in.
"We're leaving now, Terran, please warm the engine," Raven asked loudly. They nodded on the visual intercom and started everything. A few minutes after they got there, the set-up crew started to prepare everything as did the people in the control room.
"Hey, Teen Titans, if you wait for a few hours, that'd be great," Terran, the manager of the Teen Titan's air-ships section, said. They nodded. "Oh, and, maybe you could brush up on your flight skills eh?" They, once again, nodded at her.
After 6 quick hours of training on fighting and flying the rocket, they stopped and decided Robin was hungry. Raven sat there, looking out the window, thinking of what they could do to find the man. She thought again.
'I don't know how long it will take to find that guy, but I'm guessing it'll take about 3 weeks at the least. When we get back, they'll probably be dead!' She thought. She teleported to the tower and grabbed onto Starfire, bringing her on board then repeated with Beastboy and Cyborg.
"Where were you?" Robin said as he shoved food in his mouth as if he had just eaten in three weeks.
"Making sure the rest of our team won't die while we're on the trip," Raven responded.
"Okay," he said.
"I'll be going outside," Raven confirmed, he bobbed his head. While she was outside, she started meditating. 45 minutes later, she was disturbed by Robin.
"Azarath, metrion, zinthos. Azarath, metrion, zinthos," she repeated. It was almost record breaking. She felt a tap on her shoulder and she shudder with anger. "What?!"
"Raven?" he queried. He stood next to her floating figure and put a hand on her shoulder, "Raven, if we don't survive-"
"Who said we weren't going to survive?" Raven questioned. He looked at her through his mask, the mask he never took off. He smirked and looked at the sun half way down, from the noon point.
"Yeah, I guess we'll live through this," he shook his head up and down.
"And we'll find a way to bring our friends back to a human form," she added. He nodded again.
"Yeah," Robin agreed. He continued with heart-fluttering words, "Yeah, but Raven."
"What?" she tried to meditate again but was disturbed every now and then. She figured that she wasn't going to meditate and forced her feet down on the ground.
"Raven, if anything happened to either of us, I want you to know that I care for you," Robin smiled. Raven, how ever started to blush, "And I want you to know that I love you."
"Ahem, as a friend?" Raven suggested. He shrugged.
"I guess," he smiled. "Here," he supplemented. He took her hand and forced an object in it. Raven closed her eyes, not wanting embarrassment to flow through. She squeezed her fist, afraid to see what it was, but was poked by the object.
She opened both her eyes and hand to find a dried rose. Even if it was dead, it was beautiful. The faded red grew from the inside and the black- red of it was still on the edges. Roses were her favorite type of flower. It was said to be a weed, but she thought of it as delightful. She smiled and smelled the rose. The sweet scent surrounded her nose. Its frail form was gently placed into her hands. Raven looked at the rose once more, but back to Robin.
"Thank you," she whispered in her quiet voice. He edged towards her as she looked at the simplicity of the charming rose. "How'd you know a rose was my favorite flower?"
"I know you a lot more than you think," he smiled again. She looked at the rose once more.
"When did you get this? How? A dark, deep rose costs too much," she explained.
"I know. It was for your funeral, but since you're alive, I thought you wanted it. I know its dead, but it's still beautiful," he said. 'Like you,' he thought. Robin continued, "And I ordered this."
"Thank you," Raven repeated. Being so close to kissing her, he withdrew and hugged her. She blushed and was too scared to hug him. A silent tear slipped down his face and onto her shoulder. "You're crying? Why is that?"
"I don't want to lose you," he replied. She smiled. He was slowly progressing in expressing his love, as she was too.
"We should go now, I think they're ready-" she began. Robin shook his head and held onto her tighter. She blushed as a fiery glow ran across both her cheeks.
"It doesn't matter if aren't in love with each other, Raven, it only matters if you're by my side," he whispered into her hair. She tried hugging him back but she knew it wasn't right. "I guess then, we should go."
However, Robin didn't let go and she didn't reject. He held her closer, tighter to his heart and soul. She had lay her head on his shoulder and smiled once again. She sub-consciously dropped the rose and hugged him back. In the setting sun, everything seemed perfect for that moment.
As minutes passed by, Raven let go and smiled at him. He smiled back. She then teleported to the rocket and got ready at the control center of it. He picked up the rose and looked at it once more. He grinned and walked over towards the rocket.
When they were inside, Raven blushed every time they came near each other. Robin diverted his eyes somewhere, all the while, smiling on the inside.
"So let's go find a cure, eh?" Robin insisted. Raven nodded and set off the timer to blast off.
"Sure."