Hey! Robin and Raven are actuall getting wise in this chapter!
I just want to thank all those who are commenting.Gives me a confidence boost to get these written!
On with the chapter!
Suggestions of an Awkward Nature
Finishing Raven's first game of pool soon turned into another game, at Raven's request, surprisingly; and that turned into another game, and another, and another, until nearly a week and a half had passed since the start of what became a nightly ritual.
They didn't tell their fellow teammates about their clandestine midnight games; it was their thing, one thing they shared with each other; and though neither would admit it, they both felt that, in the pit of their hearts, it was almost…illicit.
"Especially not Starfire." Robin had heartily agreed when Raven had brought up the subject.
Robin had only one problem with this: Raven had gotten astonishingly good at pool. Good enough that Robin had to stop going easy on her and actually try to beat her. That, and he didn't have to teach her anymore; he could give her pointers and such, but he didn't have to guide her like he had the first night, and he found that oddly displeasing.
"Should we play for anything tonight?"
Raven looked at him quizzically from across the table as she collected the colored balls from the pockets and set them in the wooden triangle.
"Play for anything?" she asked, then curiously "Like what?"
"I dunno." Robin shrugged and scratched the back of his neck "Anything, I guess."
"I'm not playing strip-pool for you, Wonder Boy." She said humorlessly, though a frightened smirk was forcing itself out.
Robin snorted with laughter. Then an image popped unwarningly into his head and his mind scrambled to pop it back out again. He saw Raven was blushing.
He cleared his throat. "We'll think of something."
He reached under the table and pulled a quarter from a small ledge on one of the wooden legs.
"Heads or tails?"
"Tails."
Robin flipped the silver coin, spun on his heel, and caught in with an unnecessary flourish. Raven scoffed teasingly at him.
"Heads. My shot." He scrutinized the table, and leaned down to aim.
"I got it," he said "The first one to miss 2 pockets has to scream..Uh…bunnies make good fuzzy pancakes or something in the morning, in front of everyone." He looked up at Raven, who was laughing at him from behind her hand.
"Okay," she agreed slyly "I just hope that you like looking crazy, because Cyborg will have half the mind to ship you off to Arkham when you make good on that in the morning."
"Oh-ho, she poses a challenge." He said narratively, looking down his stick at the cue ball. Hit and miss.
"Straight to Arkham." Raven joked "Almost there."
"You saying I don't spout nonsense about bunnies and pancakes enough for me not to seem crazy?"
"Spot on." Raven gave him a cheeky smile and hit a solid into a side pocket.
"Strip-pool is sounding better right now." He said, and gave Raven a furtive glance that was meant to be playful.
The remaining balls on the table glowed with light or dark energy. The blue chalk cube exploded in a flash of dark light.
The pair of them stood in stunned silence, Raven's violet eyes fixed on the spot where the chalk cube had been. She looked both embarrassed and utterly horrified.
"What was that?" he asked her quietly. Their comfortable aura with each other was suddenly clouded; they could both feel it.
"Raven?" She hadn't answered.
"Nothing! Nothing…" she gasped out quickly, as if snapped from a daydream. "I just-" She stopped, closing her eyes, her face glazing over with her usual nonchalant expression. The blush in her cheeks, however, remained vividly crimson.
"What? Is something wrong?" Robin persisted, coming closer to her and touched her hand comfortingly. Their carefully forged connection has hit a spike, and his touch feels like an electric shock on her skin.
"No!" she snapped with more force than she meant to. Robin's hand remained firmly over hers until she jerked her own away.
"I'm sorry Robin, I-" she looked apologetic as she sidestepped down the short stairs. She finished with a hasty "goodnight" before disappearing around the corner, leaving a very befuddled Robin behind.
Raven was berating herself as she dashed back to her room.
'What is wrong with you? How could you let that happen? You're not supposed to feel that way….'
"But you do." She whispers to herself once she's back inside her dark room, sliding down to the floor with her back against the door.
Moonlight illuminates her books, her posters, her shelves filled with trinkets and ornamental weapons. Raven felt like crying.
"You do."
She is afraid of what she wants.
She is afraid of the hurt.
She has been hurt before.
But she wants what she is afraid of.
And fear overcomes the want.
Raven had avoided him all day.
Robin was sprawled out on the couch by the pool table, his masked eyes trained expectantly on the opening of the corridor to the living area.
It was 12:20 am and Raven had not appeared for their game.
He was going over everything in his head. The morning after Raven had left their game so suddenly she hadn't come out of her room for breakfast.
Starfire had gone to try and coax Raven out, but she only returned with a shrug and looking rather glum.
"She says she will not come out, Robin." Starfire said, floating over to him. "Perhaps she is sick?"
"Nah," Cyborg scoffed, stirring his waffle batter erratically. "That girl never gets sick."
"She hasn't holed up in her room for awhile." Beast Boy said, stirring his tofu-waffle batter with equal ferocity. "She probably felt overdue."
She even avoided him when they got called out to take care of some new mediocre villain whose name he couldn't remember and looked like a walking cactus plant gone wrong. When they returned to the tower, Raven disappeared back to her room as if she had never left.
Robin toyed with the cue ball in his hands; rolling it over his palm and back of his hand, his eyes still fixed on the corridor.
Why had she acted like that? Had he said something wrong? Done something wrong? He replayed the scenario over again in his mind. Maybe she was mad at him…
He found himself thinking back to the first night they played rather fondly. When he was teaching her how to play, how he missed that, how he had watched her, how beautiful her laugh was…
Realization struck him like a smack to the head.
Raven.
He was…he liked- he…
Even his thoughts were stuttering. He liked Raven. Not just liked, no, he was…
His chest was fluttering with an inexplicable amount of feeling. His mind went back again to the first night, this time centered on the violet-haired girl. Her laugh was a most beautiful thing, and she only laughed like that when she was around him…
All the pieces he had pondered suddenly clicked into place, and realization struck him like a lightning bolt.
Ooh...