Numb: Raven and Robin

"So afraid to love you, but more afraid to lose. Clinging to a past that doesn't let me choose… It's funny how we feel so much but cannot say a word. We are screaming inside but we can't be heard."—Sarah McLaghlan,"I Will Remember You," Mirrorball

Raven walked up the stairs to find Starfire crumpled like a piece of discarded paper against the door to the roof. She was sobbing and soaking and Raven felt a strange pity for the girl.

"Hey… let's get you cleaned up," Raven said in a rare show of kindness as she offered her hand to the distraught Tamaranian.

Starfire looked up at Raven, as if just noticing she was there.

"What?" she uttered, her voice quivering. Suddenly, she stood quickly, ignoring Raven's proffered hand. "Oh, no, Raven, I am alright, I can take care of myself." She briskly dusted any excess water off her skirt and rung out her long red tresses. She then glared at the telekinetic with a fierce, desolate fire in her green eyes. "I am not as incompetent as everyone seems to think."

"I never said you were incompetent!" Raven snapped, angry at the uncalled for accusation.

Starfire was cold and stoic as she made her way down the stairs gracefully with her pride intact. "Good night, Raven."

"Is it raining out there?" Raven asked needlessly as the young girl retreated. Starfire made no reply, so Raven decided to find out for herself.

To her total and utter shock, she saw a lone dark figure, standing carelessly in the rain as if it made no difference to him.

"Robin!" Raven called through the incessant drumbeats of the wet bullets pummeling the rooftop. The frozen figure made no gesture to show he had heard her. Raven scowled.

"Robin, get over here before you melt!" she screamed. Slowly, he turned his head and cracked a smile at the girl at the door. The corners of her mouth twitched in reply. She sighed and created a black curtain around herself to shield herself from the torrential rain. Robin cocked an eyebrow at her odd behavior as she approached. She merely glared at him.

"I don't do wet," she explained in answer to his silent question. Robin merely laughed dully.

"Right," he said, and turned to look over the edge to the sea, which was being punctured by the rain.

"You're upset," Raven noted.

"You think?" Robin barked, heatedly. Raven remained impassive at his sudden mood swing.

"Hm… Well, you seem better, good night." And with that, she turned and made her way back to the door. He frowned after her.

"You're not going to try and figure out what's bothering me?" he asked of her retreating back. Raven shrugged, refusing to face her companion.

"Why should I?" she asked him. "I don't want to know and you don't want to tell me."

"Maybe I do want to tell you…" Robin muttered, looking away from her. Raven sighed, rolled her eyes and slumped her shoulders.

"That's what I was afraid of," she said, turning to face him. She looked up at te sky apprehensively and dropped her shield. Robin nearly burst into hysterics at the unhappy expression on Raven's sodden face as the rain poured down on her.

"Isn't that a sight for sore eyes," he said with a curt laugh. "Thanks, Raven."

"For what?" Raven snapped. "I don't like being laughed at."

"See, I don't get that about you," Robin said. "You know you did that to make me smile."

"I did that," Raven explained, patiently, "because I couldn't keep up my shield long in this static from the rain. And it looked like you were unwilling to go inside. I don't know what's funny about it."

Robin said nothing as he looked out at the city again. Raven approached him and took her place next to him.

"You've been looking out here long?" she asked.

"Since before it was raining," Robin said. "I come up here a lot to think."

"So I've noticed," Raven said, trying her best to ignore the water. There was a strange silence between them, each contemplating the meaning of the previous happenings of that night.

"I saw Starfire by the door. Did you finally tell her she doesn't have a chance?"

Robin looked at Raven, baffled.

"How did you…?"

"Oh please, Robin," Raven said with a classic roll of the eyes. "Even a blind man could see the stars in her eyes when your name comes up. You must know you're all she talks about, all she thinks about, all she is… Hell, everyone in the tower knows she's head over heals for you. And unfortunately, everyone but her could see that you were totally oblivious."

"I had no idea…" Robin muttered, suddenly feeling cold and guilty. Raven sighed.

"But Star isn't the only one who got rejected tonight…" Raven muttered. Robin frowned.

"You…?" he started.

"Ha!" Raven said, her voice full of mockery. "Teenage lust is not a thing I tamper with willingly. No, Beast Boy."

"Oh," said Robin, understanding in a heartbeat. Suddenly, he smiled unexpectedly. "You know, he talks about you all the time. Half the time it's complaints, but that just makes it all the more obvious."

"Huh," Raven muttered. "He's a great kid, and I… he's… sweet…" Raven made a face at the word as if it tasted sour on her tongue. "And I guess he's funny when he's not trying too hard. But he's just not someone I'd… Well, there's not a lot of people I'd really…" Raven trailed off, mystified at her loss for words and the words she could find that were tumbling out of her mouth. She looked up at Robin, looking surprised at herself. "I'm sorry."

"Why?" Robin asked with a sweet smile that for some reason made Raven feel warm in the cold rain. "There's nothing wrong with sharing your thoughts on this."

"I don't normally share my thoughts…" Raven muttered.

"Nor do I," Robin admitted with a weak smile. "We're quite the pair, aren't we?"

"You express your emotions less than I do," Raven noted. "You always hide from how you feel in training."

"And you hide in mediation," Robin pointed out. Raven gave him a rare, respectful smile.

"Touché," she said. Robin sighed.

"Well… Star said something when she was here that's bugging me… She said I need to love someone. And the more I think about it, the more I believe her. At first I thought it was ridiculous, one of those fairytale whims she has, but maybe she's right… I don't know, I'm just a kid. I shouldn't have to deal with the concept of love yet."

"Here, here," Raven said, toasting him with an invisible glass.

"Love is crazy, you know?" he said. He tilted his head to analyze the girl before him, who looked oddly different through the gray haze of rain, under the dim light from streetlamps below and what little moonlight seeped through the clouds. Slowly and daringly, he reached out to pull a strand of hair that was plastered to her face out of her eyes and place it behind her ear. Oddly enough, she let him, and closed her eyes as he did so, obligingly. As if realizing what was happening she pulled away and glared at him. But again, he merely smiled that curious, enigmatic smile.

"What are you doing?" she demanded, her voice full of suspicion.

"Your eyes see more when you don't have wet hair blocking their view," he explained.

They shared another thoughtful silence, though this one was incredibly more awkward.

Raven contemplated her reaction at Robin's simple gestures, and why it was bothering her so that she'd let him so freely. Robin wondered at his own behavior, and why he had risked Raven's anger just to brush her cheek with his fingers.

They both looked up at the same time and caught each other's eye for a moment, then swiftly looked away.

This isn't right, Raven thought, her heartbeat increasing to twice its normal rate.

I can't do this! Robin thought to himself, appalled at the strange ideas forming in his mind, all planted by Starfire's strange suggestions. This makes no sense, it's ludicrous and impulsive and unfounded and…It was a lot of things he could name. But no matter how ridiculous it seemed, and how little he wanted to do it, something definitely had to be done about it…

Slowly, the teenage boy approached the introvert cautiously, as if she were a cobra waiting to strike. More out of curiosity's sake than anything else, or so he told himself, he reached out and stroked her arm tenderly. She eyed him warily, like a doe ready to bolt at any sign of danger. But this doe made no move as her pursuer's hand gently slid down her forearm to her meet her own fingertips. Delicately, he toyed with her fingers and she pressed her palm against his. Each were staring at their connected hands in fascination, wondering how the previously numb appendage could suddenly be filled with such warmth that seemed to be radiating from the familiar stranger across from them.

Slowly they looked up to meet each other's eyes. Raven appeared stunned while Robin tried his hardest to remain impassive, though his mind was a cluttered freeway for thoughts.

Quickly Raven broke contact and her eyes flared with fury.

"No," she hissed.

"Right," Robin said, pulling away from her quickly and shaking his head as if to rid himself of his mistake. "That wasn't anything."

"You're right," Raven snapped angrily at him. "It wasn't."

A very tense silence was cast between like a stone into a placid like.

Raven turned away from the boy, shivering from everything but the cold. She pulled her cloak tighter around her, as if it would keep the shame from seeping into her skin. She walked briskly to the door.

"Raven!" Robin called after her. She stopped, but did not turn to meet him. "This is just crazy, right? I mean, nothing really happened, right?"

Raven responded with silence. Robin sighed.

"Yeah, I figured. I thought I…" but he sighed and neglected to finish his sentence as he shook his head and made his way quickly past the stationary Raven, looking frustrated.

"Crazy…" he mumbled as he slammed the door back to the tower.

Raven watched the closed door calmly.

Love is crazy, Robin had said earlier that night. And Raven had never doubted it. She felt suddenly regretful of the uncalled for resentment she had expressed, for she bared no anger towards him at all. It had been a bitterness towards the strange and unwelcome feeling that had risen from the pit of her stomach and had been beginning to well in her heart. And she hated it.

And yet she couldn't help feeling like she had made some terrible mistake.

"It's strange," she muttered to herself. "This sanctuary I've built to keep my emotions in check, this… this grave that we refuse to leave… The refuge we've built to flee the places we've come to fear the most…"

She paused and inhaled a quivering breath at the startling truth.

"…is the place that we have come to fear the most of all…"

She shivered and shook her head lose of those upsetting thoughts. Her face set, she made her way to the door.

"But there's nothing that can be done about it," she said with a cold scowl. "So why bother."