: - Sweet Charade

"Robin? Is something wrong?" Starfire gripped his arm, her green eyes glowing worriedly. Robin, surprised by this action, ripped himself out of her grasp, causing her to draw back in fear. He sighed, lacing his fingers into his spiky black hair. What was wrong with him? Ever since two nights ago he'd been acting as jumpy as Cyborg when Beast Boy made breakfast: unsure what dish was tofu and what wasn't, everything had to be tested and weighed before any real decisions could be made. That was what he was trying to do, but it was hard to test someone who rarely spoke to you in the first place.

"Nothing's wrong, Star," he assured her half-heartedly, but he wasn't looking at the alien; in fact, his eyes were trained on the floor as he attempted to sort out what was going on. The weird dream, the way he had been behaving, the discovery that Raven had healing powers that Beast Boy had known about yet never shared...everything seemed to be leading up to one conclusion, which was the exact one he hadn't wanted to have.

He didn't love Starfire, like everyone believed. He didn't love Starfire, like she believed. He didn't love Starfire, like he believed.

Love wasn't a word he wanted to use on this emotion, but he found that it was the only way he could label what he felt. He didn't want to say he loved Raven, because loving Raven would be like loving a block of wood. But how else could he describe the way he felt? It sounded corny even to his ears to hear himself think it, but he knew that it was the only way he could possibly define it.

"Starfire?" he asked, looking up at her. The alien nodded happily, her eyes shining. "Could I talk to you...outside?" It felt strange to know that you had to break up with someone you never truly went out with.

"Yes, of course," she replied, still with a happy expression on her face. She went out of the main room first and into the hall, leaving Robin behind. It was late at night and they had taken care of a brief attack by Gizmo, Jinx, and Mammoth that morning, so most everyone was asleep – Beast Boy was curled up on the couch, Raven was meditating in front of the windows, and Cyborg was hugging the video game controller as he slept on the floor, his back up against the couch. Dreading what he had to do, Robin slowly got up and followed the alien outside and onto the rocks of Titan Island.

Starfire was waiting for him when he arrived, hovering a few inches above the ground with her hands clasped at her waist. She looked beautiful in the moonlight to him, but her beauty seemed just a bit superficial to him at that moment, a little bit overdone.

"Star...we have to end this," he said after a long moment of silence. Starfire's brow knitted and she lowered herself to the ground, obviously having been expecting better news.

"I do not understand," she replied quietly, rubbing one arm.

Robin took a deep breath before continuing. "Everybody thinks that we're together...that we're...Robin and Starfire, the perfect couple, the...I can't...Star, and it isn't true. It's not right. Everybody's wrong; the people on that ship, when we danced together at that moth guy's daughter's prom, they were wrong! I used to think that we were perfect for each other, but I realized...it was all an act."

Starfire's eyes were huge and covered in a translucent sheen. Robin averted his own masked eyes, not wanting to see the result of his actions.

"You...do not...?" she began, but couldn't finish as a sob welled in her throat. Robin turned, feeling heartless and cruel, and started back towards the Tower.

Stopping for a minute, he said quietly over his shoulder to her, assured that she could hear it: "I care about you, Star, I really do. Just...not like that."

"Raven!"

Beast Boy was banging on her door, she was sure; that was the only voice that accompanied that sort of pounding. He must have been in the form of an ox or a goat, because it sounded like hooves on the metal of her door. Levitating in the middle of the room, she ignored him, attempting vainly to get her powers back in control. Whenever she saw Robin now something inverted its colors in a sure sign that her powers were at work, and it either imploded, exploded, or did something obscene, like burp or something akin to it. She knew why this was, but couldn't allow this foreign emotion to overtake her senses. In the battle with the Hive agents the day before, she had hardly been able to reign in her powers enough to do nothing instead of making things worse.

"Go away," she told him in her no-tone voice, but he couldn't hear her over his beating of her door.

"Come out, Raven! C'mon, we're going out for pizza!" B.B. refused to give it up, and so Raven decided to do a test. Carefully draining herself of all emotions, she let a snake of blackness trickle out from her mind and open the door. Beast Boy fell through and onto her carpet, his form returning to that of a green teenager as he twitched. "Y'didn't need to do that," he mumbled brokenly, his teeth buried in the fibers of her carpet.

"Leave me alone," she told him firmly, dropping out of her levitation spell and lowering her hood. She walked over to him and stood there, her eyes narrowed angrily. The gem on her forehead seemed to stand out brighter as she exhibited the palest amount of annoyance.

"But...the pizza..." Beast Boy tried to continue, but Raven muttered her incantation, and a moment later the shifter was trapped in a black hand and had been firmly deposited outside of her door. With a final push of her powers, the metal slid closed, and she walked back into the center of the room, rising once again on nothing but air.

"Azarath...Metrion...Zin—"

She was cut short as the door opened again, but when she rounded angrily on the person who had done it, Robin stood there, looking up at her helplessly. Shuddering and letting her powers drain back into her mind, she slowly dropped to the ground and stood in front of the unofficial leader.

"What?" she asked, managing to keep the shakiness out of her voice.

"Aren't you coming?" he countered, taking a step closer to her. She refused to swallow and show weakness, but it was hard having him just a few inches away from her. His hand seemed to shake as he extended it to her, finally resting it on her shoulder. She was shorter than him only by an inch or so, but to her it now seemed that he was hundreds of feet taller than her. She had no fear of horror movies or mutant candy – at least not a drastic fear – but this was one thing she could not cope with.

"I can't come," she said in a rush, backing away from him and walking backwards to her dresser. Fumbling blindly behind her, she grabbed her meditation mirror and held it up in front of her. "I've got things to do."

"Raven, wait!" Robin had just managed to say before she disappeared into the vortex of the mirror. He sighed dejectedly, hanging his arms in defeat. He had officially told Starfire that he didn't love her, but what about Raven, the one who he really felt something for?

"I've got a problem," Robin began, gesturing slightly towards Cyborg. The half-robot was washing the T-Car, whom he and Raven had repaired once. Maybe that was why Robin enjoyed leaning on it so much? He shook his head violently; no, that was just weird.

"Shoot," Cyborg replied distractedly, using a brush to gently scrape grit out of a crack in the side mirror.

"Okay, it goes like this. I sorta told Star that we weren't exactly made for each other, and so she's pissed off at me, but won't say it. She's just ignoring me and acting like I don't exist. But the truth is that Raven is the one who made me realize that Starfire and me just weren't working together, and so I found out sort of inadvertently that I really liked Raven all along, and –"He broke off and crossed his arms angrily, glaring at Cyborg.

"Hey baby, how are you? Nice and clean, you look so pretty, my baby..." Cyborg was absently stroking the hood of the car and looking at it adoringly. Robin cleared his throat loudly, and Cyborg snapped out of his car-praising reverie and looked at him. "Now, what were you saying?"

"B.B., you're no help!" Robin shouted as he stormed out of the recreational room, crossing his arms angrily. When he had tried to explain the Starfire- Raven situation to the shifter, all Beast Boy had done was complain about how he had to go out and buy more tofu since Cyborg threw it all out the other day. Neither of his friends had listened to him, and now he felt that he had no one left to speak to.

"Robin?"

He cringed when Starfire's voice met his ears. He turned slowly to face her, standing with her head lowered slightly and eyes unreadable, and tried to think of something to say.

"Cyborg told me that you are unable to solve a dilemma. Could I be of assistance?" she asked quietly. He rubbed one arm, thinking of a possible way to get out of this conversation. He knew that there was no way, and that he was virtually trapped.

"Yeah...I guess," he finally conceded. Starfire allowed him the smallest of smiles.

"And what is your dilemma?" she prodded. Robin inwardly screamed that she should leave him alone, that she was only walking into more hurt, but he had to answer. It was compelling.

"I...can't seem to find a way to get Raven to let me talk to her for more than five seconds without disappearing or walking away," he eventually said. Starfire's eyes held blame and a slight hint of anger, but she said nothing about what she felt.

"You must do something that is of interest to her, like the meditation or the reading or something of that kind," she advised. Robin nodded, slightly defeated. He knew that Raven and Starfire, as best friends, did similar things, and that was how the darkness-wielder had opened up to the alien.

"Alright," he said, cracking a small smile. "Thanks a lot, Star." She turned to walk away, but he grabbed her wrist, stopping her. "You know..." he began, but she stopped him with a minute shake of her head.

"It is alright," she whispered, slowly unlatching her hand from his. "I understand." With that, she turned and flew down the corridor, silent as a shadow.

Sorry for the delay. We have two computers – one that goes off at night and one that we use twenty-four seven. The 24 hour computer happened to be busted yesterday, so I did most of the chapter here and yesterday, but I didn't get to finish/post it because it got turned off. So here it is, on the non-malfunctioning computer. And if you haven't noticed, I have way too much fun with the italics at the ends of the chapter.

Disclaimer: I don't own Teen Titans. I don't own the title of the chapter, either. It was an episode title in Wolf's Rain.

Still the road keeps telling me to go on
 Something is pulling me
I feel the gravity of it all...