: - Sweet Charade

An iridescent light appeared in Raven's hands, and she closed her eyes as it did so, allowing her mind to concentrate more fully when the world around her wasn't interfering. She already knew what she wanted to heal was right in front of her, so she merely stretched out her hands and touched them to his arm, allowing the light to seep into his skin and right the bone that had moved out of place. When she was satisfied, both inwardly and outwardly, she opened her eyes and drew her hands away before turning around and moving off in the direction of the couch, where a new copy of her book was waiting.

"Thanks, Raven," she heard Robin say to her, but she didn't reply; she had already gotten the third degree about her healing ability from Beast Boy when those Hive brats had overtaken their tower.

"Marvelous!" Starfire announced, clapping her hands once. Raven ignored her and continued around the couch, picking up her book and sitting down. "I did not know that you had mastery over the ability of curing broken body parts." Raven could almost hear Robin shake his head in agreement.

"Yeah, neither did I," he said quietly, flexing his arm to see if it was, truly, as good as new. When he realized that it was, he thrust his fist in the air triumphantly and grinned. "This is great! Now we don't have to waste all of our time on bandages or whatever anymore; Raven can just take care of it!"

Raven narrowed her eyes angrily in the shadows of her hood and spun around on the couch, trying to keep her anger in check. "I can only heal one person a day," she said in her normal monotone. "If you wanted to start like that, then if everybody had an injury that couldn't wait, it would take us five days to be ready to fight again. Don't throw out the bandages just yet," she added, turning around again.

Robin sighed, crestfallen. "Well, it's still a useful power, at any rate," he muttered, and the creaking of the chair he was in said that he had gotten up. "I'm going to bed," he said, whether to Raven or Starfire the darkness-wielder wasn't sure. "I'm still kinda sore."

The mechanical doors opened and Robin exited, leaving just Raven and Starfire in the same room. Raven, having no interest whatsoever in her book, set it down and stood, fully prepared to go back to her room as well. She wasn't up for meditating, in her mirror or anywhere else, but sleep did sound like a good idea; it was just past four in the morning. Cyborg was in the kitchen wrestling with Beast Boy, she noticed as she passed by, probably over tofu or some other vegetarian thing that Beast Boy insisted they keep in their.

"Will you not stay up with me?" Starfire called after her, sprinting to the door and watching Raven disappear down the hallway that lead to her room. When she didn't answer, the alien sighed and turned back into the main room. "She does not wish to act like the friend with me," she sighed. "I think I will help Cyborg rid the kitchen of the terrible Beast Boy food."

"What is this?" Robin muttered, tugging at the black thing around his eyes. It held tightly, like a blindfold, only that he could see through it, sort of. It had to be some device of Slade's, or someone like Mad Mod, because he was sure that he had been asleep in his room in the tower when he opened his eyes and discovered, to his dismay, that something covered them.

He tried to stand up from his bed, but realized that he was already standing. That was strange. He could see through the blindfold, kind of, but he felt like it took something away from him as well. He didn't know what was going on and felt a little light headed, as if he was hanging upside down for a period of time. His feet appeared to know where they were going even if his mind didn't, so he let them take him into the center of what looked like a large room to his eyes. He didn't recognize it; if he had to compare it to anything, he would have picked a ballroom from the movies that they'd seen. But that couldn't be right.

Someone came over to him, but he didn't know who. It was a girl, but that was about all he could tell. Screwing up his face angrily, he tried again to pull off the blindfold, but yet again it didn't work. He knew that that was what was keeping his memories away from him, but if it didn't want to budge, what was he going to do? He had to find the other Titans...or something like that...

However, the only thing on his mind at that moment was the girl in front of him. She didn't appear any older or younger than him, with...hair...and attire that suited the room they were in. He couldn't put the name of a color to anything, even if he knew he knew them, and all of his rational thoughts were slipping away through his fingers. A question kept crowding his mind, and, finally, he asked it.

"Would you like to dance?" he blurted, offering one hand. She took it, but the smile he'd expected on her face didn't appear.

"This is pointless," she replied, but put her hands on his shoulders anyway, taking the perfect form. Robin didn't know how he actually knew to dance – the only experience he had was when he and...some other girl... had sort of rocked back and forth on a boat together. He didn't understand that, come to think of it; why had he done that? This girl seemed so much more mature than the other one – or maybe it was the same one? He couldn't tell.

"Who are you?" he asked, following her lead as she moved rather gracefully through the steps of what he could only assume was a complicated waltz. Lilting music was playing somewhere behind him, but he couldn't pinpoint a tune; when he looked around, they were the only two people in that enormous room. But it hadn't been that way when he arrived...had it?

"You know who I am," she replied, a touch of annoyance in her voice. He knew that voice, and knew her face, but that ridiculous blindfold kept what he so desperately wanted to know from him. "And I know who you are," she added, as if prodding him to announce her name.

"Who am I?" he asked quietly. He knew who he was, but shouldn't she? She didn't have a blindfold on, though, and so he wouldn't be surprised if she did know.

She rolled her eyes, which were an interesting color, if he could remember what color to call them. "You're Robin," she told him in a strangely flat, emotionless voice. His eyes widened beneath the blindfold, which caused the material to loosen and fall from around his masked eyes and hanging about his neck.

"You're –"

"—Raven!" he exclaimed triumphantly, shooting up in his bed. Robin blinked. Bed? What bed? Slade had been playing a trick on them, had imprisoned their memories in a blindfold, had... He took a deep breath, understanding, and felt stupidity filter through him. "Dream," he whispered, throwing aside the blanket. "It was a dream."

He got up and pushed open his door, immediately turning down a corridor and jogging to the first door he saw. He pounded on it, and sighed inwardly when Beast Boy answered it, not Starfire...or Raven, for that matter.

"You haven't had any weird dreams, have you?" Robin pressed, taking on the assertive leader position. Beast Boy rubbed one eye and didn't appear to notice the drool rolling down his chin.

"Nuh-uh," he agreed sleepily, leaning against the doorpost. "Just the fan girls, back for another round like...always..." The shifter fell asleep where he was standing, his eyes closed and body limp against the door. Robin left him and started back to his own room, trying to brush off any lingering effects the dream had on him. Why had he dreamt of something like that? Why would Raven –

"Robin?"

He jumped and had his retracting pipe halfway open when he realized that it was just Raven. Just Raven – what a creepy thought.

"Y-yes?" he stammered, fitting the pipe back into a compartment on his belt. He folded his arms casually, but Raven raised one eyebrow, and he sighed and let his arms hang at his sides. Her cloak wasn't on, strangely enough, and he found it interesting that she didn't sleep in it; she was always ready to go if a late-night distress call came through.

"What are you doing banging on doors this early?" she asked, not exactly suspiciously. He shrugged nonchalantly.

"I just had a weird dream, and wanted to know if anyone else had one so I could see if it was something done by Slade or another potential villain. But from what I understand from Beast Boy, it's just a weird dream, nothing to it," he explained. She crossed her arms.

"Oh."

She turned around and started walking away, but Robin jogged to her and grabbed her shoulder, turning her around to face him. "Did you have any weird dreams?" he asked. Maybe if she had had the same one, or something similar to it...

"No," she replied tonelessly. He nodded, accepting his defeat.

"Oh. Okay," he said, turning and going back to his room. She went in the opposite direction, leaving him standing before his door. He leaned back against it, folding his arms and mulling things over in his mind. "They say that dreams reflect your innermost desires, right?" he asked himself, trying to figure things out. "Well...why would I dream about dancing with Raven, and not Starfire? She's the one I...right? Right?"

That dance/dream thing was so cliché it's not even funny. But that Date with Destiny episode made me angry because Robin should be with Raven, not Starfire, so I made my own rendition of it. This is only going to be five chapters long, so since this is the third, I guess it's about halfway through; only two more after this. There won't be any Raven/Robin action in the next chapter, but in the last, I assure you there will be.

--:: Disclaimer: I don't own Teen Titans. I do own the title of this chapter, though, so I've conquered that, at least. But the lyrics down here are something I don't own. They're from Music of the Night from Phantom of the Opera. I thought they suited Raven, at any rate.

Turn your face away from the garish light of day
Turn your thoughts away from cold, unfeeling light