Disclaimer: I don't own the Teen Titans, but if I did, I'd keep them in a miniature replica of their former habitat. Except for Robin and Raven. I'd take them out and play with them.

Summary: In honor of April Fool's Day, I present to you the reason that next year, April Fool's might not be Raven's least favorite holiday... RobRae


Chapter One:

Demonic Duct Tape

Raven almost didn't come out of her room at all that day. Contrary to the apparently popular belief, her least favorite holiday was not Valentine's Day, nor was it Christmas, nor Easter (although, after spending time as a rabbit last year, Easter was a close second on her hated holidays list). No, Raven's least favorite holiday, at least since becoming a member of the Titans, was April Fools Day.

Raven forced herself into a state of calm and prepared herself to face the borderlined paranoia she had developed about a certain green prankster's favorite holiday. The day would be bad enough without her losing control of her emotions. As she painstakingly gained control of herself, Raven did allow one brief vision to play out in her mind...

Beast Boy was wide-eyed with fear as the tower plunged into a state of unnatural darkness. The objects he had gathered around him to help him play pranks on his roommates suddenly animated themselves and floated menacingly toward the green titan. As four red, frightening eyes appeared on each object, Beast Boy realized who was causing his belongings to come to life.

"Raven! RAVEN! Stop! Please, stop! I won't do anything to you ever again, I promise!" But the boy's cries were drowned out as a demonic roll of duct tape floated over to encircle his mouth and limbs. It paused, then unwound itself completely, thoroughly encasing the shapeshifter in the sticky tape. His muffled cries were still audible, at least until...

Raven snapped out of her imaginings with wide-eyes, as she heard Beast Boy's distinctively feminine shriek from the living room.

"Oh, no," Raven swept urgently through the walls of the tower, afraid that her powers had caused her dream to become reality.

As she quietly morphed through the walls of the main room, Raven was immediately relieved to discover a perfectly normal—for Titan's Tower, anyway—scene. Beast Boy was hopping around in pain holding his butt, Starfire was anxiously following him looking sheepishly apologetic, and Cyborg was sitting on the sofa laughing uncontrollably.

Raven stepped further into the room. "And what happened this time?" She asked dryly, looking to Cyborg for an answer, only to discover him still laughing so hard his human eye was beginning to tear up. With a sigh, she intercepted Starfire. "What happened here?"

"Oh, Raven! I have injured friend Beast Boy!" Starfire looked like she was close to tears.

Raven blinked. "Ok, I wasn't expecting that," she muttered. Raising her voice slightly, she began to calm the nearly hysterical alien. "Starfire, he's just fine—"

"Just fine? It hurts! Dude, she hit me in the butt with one of her starbolts!" Beast Boy cut in loudly, causing Cyborg to collapse into another fit of laughter.

"Oh, Rae...you shoulda seen it..." Cyborg managed to gasp out.

Closing her eyes and breathing deeply for a few moments, Raven succeeded in chasing away most of her irritation. "What. Happened."

Beast Boy stopped massaging his injured butt long enough to take over the conversation. "Ok, so I was getting this one really great pra—uh, um, nevermind what I was doing. I was in the living room, when all of a sudden this roll of duct tape hit me in the head!" Beast Boy distracted himself momentarily by looking around suspiciously, muttering about evil alien conspiracies, which caused Starfire to shoot him a nasty look before she remembered what she had done to the changeling.

"Ok, ok, so I think, you know, that Cy threw it at me, so I'm all, 'hey, what'd you do that for?' and he's all, 'do what? You imagining things or something,' and I'm all like, 'dude, stop throwing things at me!' and he's all, 'I didn't DO ANYTHING!' And then the tape—" Beast Boy trailed off with what Raven gathered was supposed to be a dramatic pause.

Raven sighed, and Beast Boy wisely took up his narrative where he had left off. "The tape...lifted up off the floor and started unwinding, and chasing me around the room!"

"And let me guess, Starfire tried to stop it and ended up hitting you instead?" Raven surmised, affirmed by Beast Boy's emphatic nodding. She turned to Starfire. "Don't worry, Beast Boy isn't upset with you. You were only trying to help. I assume you got the tape in the end?"

Starfire shook her head sadly. "After I...injured...um, after that, the roll of the tape of duct simply became lifeless and ordinary."

Cyborg stood up from the sofa and joined them. "THAT was one of the funniest things I have ever seen, ya'll." He frowned slightly. "But I am worried about what was behind it. If this is a threat—"

Raven had pulled her hood up to cover her blushing. "Can I see that tape? I'll be able to sense if someone has a connection to it." Cyborg retrieved the offending roll of tape from the floor and handed it to Raven. As soon as she touched it, she guiltily realized that she had been unconsciously manipulating it when she was meditating. She pondered momentarily whether she should tell her teammates...

She shook her head. "I don't feel anything. I'll see if I can find out more about it later. Right now, I'm getting my tea."

Raven clutched the roll of duct tape tightly in one hand, but she appeared to have nothing other than her usual calm disposition as she turned and walked into the kitchen. After she had turned, Beast Boy dissolved into anticipatory laughter, doing his best to muffle the sound by stuffing his hand nearly down his throat. After he conquered his laughing fit, he followed Raven into the kitchen, a devious look on his impish face.

As Raven pulled the water pitcher out of the refrigerator and poured some into the teapot, she wrinkled her nose slightly. Something smelled odd. She looked at the contents of the fridge as she replaced the water pitcher and sighed. No mystery there; half the food was rotten, and the date on the baking powder was...two years ago. How was that even possible?

As Raven distractedly prepared her tea, Beast Boy eagerly slid onto a stool at the table to get a good view...and leapt up, yelping in pain. Within the confines of her hood, Raven hid a small smile. While she did feel bad, it was funny...

Raven pulled a couple of tea bags from a box in the cabinet and added them to the water boiling on the stove. Gods, that smelled awful! She eyed the nearby baking powder with disgust, but was interrupted by the whistling tea kettle. Making up her mind to ignore the smell, Raven filled her favorite mug and sipped lightly at the soothing drink.

Perhaps, reader, you can remember what Raven failed to. Yes, in her guilt over causing the duct tape incident, Raven had forgotten what day it was.

Beast Boy had stopped hopping in pain just in time to see Raven drink a mouthful of her tea. Slightly nervously, but with unmistakable glee, the mischievous teenager watched the girl's face turn to stone. For at least ten seconds, during which he grew increasingly nervous, Raven did not move at all.

Beast Boy realized too late that it would have been safer to observe his victim's reaction as...something less obtrusive. He morphed into a bat and began to quickly fly out of the kitchen. Just as he reached the doors, they became encased in black energy and slammed shut. Sweatdrops flying from his furry form, Beast Boy turned around and changed back into a human just in time to see Raven slowly and deliberately setting her mug on the counter.

She began to walk over to the nervous changeling. Beast Boy's eyes widened and he gulped. He could practically FEEL the suppressed rage coming from Raven's cloaked form. Unconsciously, he changed into a small, whimpering puppy.

"Beast Boy." Raven's voice was low and dangerous. Her eyes narrowed when the only response she received was a low whine. "What. Did you do. To my tea?"

Sweating profusely, Beast Boy again returned to his human form. "Eh heh heh, I kinda, maybe, replacedthewaterinthepitcherwithvinegar. Funny, huh?" His grin looked pained.

"Vinegar?" Raven's eyebrow twitched. "Vinegar? In my TEA? You think that's FUNNY?" Without warning, a dark object shot across the room from the kitchen counter. Beast Boy squawked and turned into a turtle, closing his eyes and withdrawing his head into the shell. Raven outstretched her left hand to catch the object, and lifted her right hand toward the cowering green turtle. "Azarath metrion zinthos!"

Beast Boy cautiously opened one eye when he heard the door behind him open and Raven's footsteps pass through it. He changed back into his human form. "Whew! I can't believe I'm still alive!" A slow, mischievous grin spread across Beast Boy's face. "Sweet!"

Still smiling, Beast Boy sauntered into the living room and stood squarely in front of Cyborg. He puffed up his chest and opened his mouth to declare his victory over the terror that was the team's resident goth. But he never got the chance. Cyborg took one look at the green teenager and immediately dissolved into laughter. "Huh?"

In his puzzlement, he turned to Starfire. "What's his problem?" To his surprise, Starfire began to giggle as well. "Hey! What's going on! Why are you all laughing at me? What's so funny!"

"Beast Boy, I was not aware that you wore...the collar," Starfire answered, still giggling. Her giggles turned into full-fledged laughter as Beast Boy began morphing into different animals, attempting to look at his own neck. Finally, he turned into a crane and spotted what had caused his teammate's laughter.

Around his neck was a makeshift collar, encased in liquid black energy, that had remained in place throughout all of his transformations. Returning to his human form, Beast Boy attempted to pull the collar off, nearly strangling himself in the process. "Oh, man! This is so humiliating! Stop laughing, you guys!" His complaints only caused Cyborg and Starfire to laugh harder, leaning on one another to keep from toppling off the sofa.

Glowering, Beast Boy fingered the humiliating object. "This is not cool," he muttered. Again, he turned into a crane to get a glimpse of his new collar. The collar that, through the shadows, looked suspiciously like a roll of demonic duct tape.

.o.o.o.o.

After leaving the kitchen, Raven stalked through the hallways toward her own room, trying to find her emotional balance. Since she hadn't even had her morning tea...

Raven pushed her thoughts away from thoughts of Beast Boy and her ruined tea. As she did so, she accidentally slammed into Robin, who had been wandering in the opposite direction, apparently as distracted as she was.

"Oof!"

"Umph!"

The two titans collided, and ungracefully landed in a heap in the middle of the hallway. Raven blushed furiously, lost control of several emotions at once, and blew out three of the lights in the hall. Wisely, Robin refrained from commenting, and gave her a crooked, slightly embarrassed smile as he helped her up.

"Er, sorry about that, Raven. I guess I wasn't watching where I was going." Raven shook off his apology, and looked as if she was going to flee down the hallway. Robin realized he had rarely seen her so flustered. "Raven, is everything alright?"

"Robin, I absolutely must meditate. My emotions are...unbalanced," Raven spoke edgily, with a forced air of calm, after taking a deep breath.

Robin scrutinized his normally controlled teammate, attempting to discover how her emotions had become so unbalanced. It didn't take him long to realize that her frazzled emotions were probably the after-effects of a prank of Beast Boy's. Robin grimaced. "He doesn't waste any time, does he?"

Slightly surprised at the observation, Raven nodded, untensing her limbs a fraction. She took a deep breath. "He replaced the water for my tea with vinegar."

Robin glared at the wall. Most times, Beast Boy's immaturity was a healthy and sometimes enjoyable counterpart to Raven's seriousness, and to his own. But on days like today... Slowly, Robin's glare turned into a wicked smirk.

Raven tensed again. "My suffering amuses you, Wonder Boy? In that case, I can't wait to see what he has in store for you," Raven hissed icily and began to brush past her leader.

"Raven, wait!" Robin grabbed her elbow just long enough to stop her retreat. Although he gulped under the assault of her glare, he continued smirking. "Actually, I just got an idea for a April Fool's Day joke."

After blinking a few times to calm the emotional backlash of being the recipient of that smirk, Raven's mind reached enlightenment. Slowly, almost uncontrollably, her own lips dragged upwards into a frightening grin. "Want any help with that?"

Robin grinned uncontrollably. "I was hoping you'd ask that. Come on!" He grabbed her arm and together the two plotting birds hurried down the hallway toward Robin's room.


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