First, thank you to everyone and as far as I know, here is thank you for each person having reviewed 'for nothing, for everything...for the birds':
Neverwinter: thank you very much for your review. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be um, a meanie… hope this chapter's okay
Allie: I thought so too, hence this fic...after all Slade himself has said that he and Robin are very much alike.
Lady Sonora the Black-Rose: HUGE THANK YOU for the vote of confidence.
icegirlz13: wow, that is a really nice compliment! And I'm still new! Thank you so very much. I really appreciate your words!
Cherry Jade: you are absolutely super cool. Thank you so much. You're so supportive:hands cookie:
RedRover3173:big smile, like more smiling than Starfire with mustard or raven during a power outage:waves around huge sign of THANK YOU-ness:
shadowheart13: Seriously, people letting me know that THEY think I should continue is a huge driving force for me and source of my ability to plow on. You're awesome. Thank you for taking the time to review.
YinMiltato: I very much agree. My eyes just about popped out of my head when THAT was the last flashback scene when he said that. And actually that quote is worked in here...muahaha. Slade's super creepy but super awesome. "It's always the quiet ones." Only HE can get away with such a ridiculously cheesy line and make it shiver-down-your-spine sinister all over again.
Morbed-Kai: 'badly in a good way' is perhaps the most accurate way of describing it! Thank you for taking an interest in the fic. Hope it keeps your interest alright.
Celestial Chaos: your willingness to click submit review much incites me to continue writing, as I've said to others, but I appreciate every review with much enthusiasm. I am really glad you think this fic is worth continuing.
Royuki: here's the chapter. Thank you for the compliments! I intend to make the next chapter a little longer and a little more...um...suited to the T rating I gave it haha...anyway. Hope this one's sorta enjoyable, if not a lot!
Reviews are super duper. Thank you so much everyone, and now, chapter ONE, since that last thing was um, a prologue...even though the chapter is shorter than the prologue and...uh...oh shoot. Balderdash. Oh well. Enjoy and if you do enjoy, let me know if you have time!
Disclaimer: teen titans isn't mine. Heck, even the plot has probably been used before, but hopefully mine's still interesting sort of...
For Nothing, For Everything...For the Birds
Chapter One: him and the other guy
Raven meditated in a fake calm, only pacified by the pitch blackness of her room. Footfalls could be heard outside in the hall and she opened one eye as a shadow fell across her door, standing in front of the light that usually seeped in through the crack under it. She detected a sigh and she knew it was him before he even spoke.
"Raven?"
No answer.
"Raven, I'm sorry. I, I don't know what came over me," he lied through his teeth, leaning on her door. There was a pause. She floated over to the door, debating whether or not to let him in. He sounded so defeated and that scared her more than anything. Robin and defeat didn't suit each other at all.
"As fixated as I am by the view of my door, talking through it is not my preference. Want to come in?" her voice made itself painstakingly toneless as she opened her door without waiting for an answer. That expression quickly changed however when the previously leaning Robin fell right on top of a bewildered Raven.
"Sure," he whispered, and while she could tell they were both very, very aware of their position, for some reason, neither of them bothered to move. She did her best to ignore how well they seemed to fit together, sprawled on the floor, limbs askew. He did his best to not let his primal tendencies get the better of him. Both mumbled half apologies as they hurried to untangle themselves, his arm from around her waist, her hand from around his neck and so on.
Once successfully separated, Raven floated backward, putting a decent five feet between her and the rather awkward situation that had just happened. Robin only took one more step in, just enough for the door to zip shut behind him like a lid on something very precious and very secret.
She focused on his feelings—strong ones, ones of frustration, anger, confusion, compassion, tenderness and lust around the edges—and doing the only thing she could think of on the spot, she acted as though she hadn't.
"Robin..."she trailed off. It wasn't like she'd planned what she was going to say but she had hoped it would go beyond his name, she chided herself wryly.
"I'm not interested in forcing anything on you, Raven," his voice was quiet, even, fair. She distinctly felt like she didn't deserve such patience. "But I've thought about this." He paused to consider his next words and she filled in the empty space with her simplicity.
"I know," her response was uncharacteristically soft.
"And I want to know why you think it to be, as you said, 'unwise'," Robin said plainly. Raven sighed and rubbed her arms as though she was cold, which in a way she was.
"Can you imagine what our enemies could do with knowledge of such a thing?" her question was his answer. The truth was he had considered this, of course. Robin was not only their leader but a strategist of decent learning. He had measured all possible pros and cons against each other and, in the end, he had chosen a chance with Raven over all else.
"I can and I did," Robin said.
"So you already know why," it was a murmur meant to be kind but it twisted his insides.
"Yes, but don't you think that maybe, just maybe, having already thought of what might become of us, haven't you noticed I'm still asking? Raven, we went through the end of the world. I just want you to make your decision knowing that it's not impossible. I can't leave this room not knowing if you understand how much..." his voice trailed off into the oddest form of fear Raven had ever encountered. Robin afraid? Beyond odd...
"'How much' what?" she pressed not daring to hope for what she had been hoping for since the defeat of Trigon.
"How much I—" and the word love didn't come so easily as fairy tales would like it to. "How much I care," he said finally and Raven's eyes glistened with her emotions as transparent as glass for a split second before she recovered herself, steeled herself to be as she was certain she must be.
"It is for the best," she evaded his noble admission with a reply that even she would admit was cheap. To her astonishment and puzzlement, he laughed quietly.
"Yes, what we do is always 'for the best'," he had turned away from her already, arm leaning casually on the doorframe as his words echoed her own with an empty edge to them. There was another uncomfortable silence and then an almost inaudible sigh as Robin left her room entirely. Raven's hand went out unconsciously to hold him by his shoulder, to make him turn around and stay there until she let herself break down and gave into what it seemed they had both considered for some time.
"Robin wai—" her resolve began to crumble but her voice must have been so soft he didn't hear because he interrupted her.
She snatched her hand back as though bitten as he added, "Sorry to disturb the peace." Surprised by the blankness of his words, Raven was rendered speechless.
It did not sit well with her, this strange tearing sensation that seemed to stem at the core of her heart, but...
Leave it; just let it go, she told herself as the door closed behind him with such reverence she thought it must understand the graveness of what had just passed between the two responsibility-driven birds.
She did her best not the be affronted by a coldness she had provoked and while Raven would not cry, she felt a severe tension build in her temples and a stinging at the core of her eyes that could have been the feeling of suppressed tears.
And the two birds did not share another glance or word for the next five days.
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Responsibility and crying—however far apart the two usually were anyway—was the farthest thing from Slade's mind as he pondered what might be best for him.
For at that moment, he was the most disturbing combination of unhappy and vindictive since those chronicled by Voltaire as he paced like a madman who dearly wanted to tread a decent sized trench in the ground...not that it was necessary. His hideout was already in one after all.
So far as his well-educated mind knew, obsession was defined, as something indicated by persistent or intrusive thoughts, ideas or impulses, even images that repeatedly enter a person's mind. He laughed hollowly at himself. The dream had been so real last night.
No.
The nightmare. He had to keep telling himself that.
He was a villain after all, set in his ways and all that.
The nightmare had been a rather colorful one and briefly he considered the likelihood of what happened in his sleep ever transpiring in real life and just as quickly disposed of the idea. His lips on her nape, her form crushed against his as she trembled in a wildly sensual mixture of passion and fear, their mingled lust...it had all been so real.
But not real enough.
"This is ridiculous," he muttered darkly to no one but himself. When last they had met, and he had become very careful of not incurring the wrath of the titans as soon as he noticed his unusual predicament, he had worked alongside the leader: Robin. He had told the dear boy:
"...and I must admit the fringe benefits were most enjoyable."
Perhaps Robin had thought Slade meant fighting them with unnatural powers, or simply inflicting harm on a greater level. Either was a good guess, a predictable one, but good guesses considering their unique history.
Slade allowed himself the smallest of smiles that the shadows contorted into a sneer.
But that was not what the once espionage man had meant, not really. Yes, there were a couple memorable moments of the titans nearly crumbling before him and those were fine.
Just fine.
But it was the ones he spent alone with her that stood out to him
Her.
He remembered gripping her arms roughly with his, feeling her shiver defiantly as he showed her the world and its bleaker than bleak future.
A future she, he had been sure to drill into her pretty little head, would bring upon the world as they knew it.
He remembered her look of dread and resentment and while he would like to tell himself this alone was what made his memory of those moments so vivid, the truth was that he also remembered the sad state her wardrobe had been in at the time. Her body had been warm and feisty even in his cold, unrelenting grasp, struggling, always struggling...
He rather liked struggle.
Then, as if catching himself in the act of something heinous, he glowered into the blackness around him and stood up abruptly, bringing his fists down hard on the table in front of him. A glass fell and shattered on the floor quietly. It seemed even breaking things was a muffled action in what seemed like his millionth lair. His body was rigid with tension as he admitted to himself, not for the first time that week, that such a fixation dealt with something, a source, and that this one was a complex and nearly unattainable Raven. His fingers ached to touch her, his coldness called out for her heat and her anger and her fear under his control and he seethed at the thought that she did not even know what she did to him.
And it occurred to him, however briefly, that he seemed to have an unhealthy fascination with birds.
It was not fair.
But slowly, very, very slowly, Slade relaxed. His brain ticked in a time bomb fashion, dangerous and technically adept. If one could not successfully ignore the intrusion, the constant influx of lust for what was not allowed, there was a simple solution that most criminals had used at least once or twice.
Cut off the source.
Relaxing even further, Slade's clenched hands loosened their unfriendly grip on the tabletop. Having a plan soothed his damnable ache for the girl and the prospect of fighting the titans buried it.
"The sooner the better," he spoke to the darkness, to himself, as most semi-psychotic bad guys had a tendency to do and settled in front of a large flat screen and a panel with many, many keys.
His fingers tapped a few of them and then a blinking word prompted him for the access code. Humorlessly, he typed it in and went about devising a suitable plan of attack, not giving his typical disturbed pause to his dubious choice of passwords:
empath
So it's a little slow, but um, still good? Er, maybe just okay? Don't worry too much about the cautious behavior of the birds. One can account for the lead bird by considering the phrase 'biding his time' and for the other darker bird by the phrase'self-preservation mechanism' or 'self-defense mode'. Next time, if you like, will be a little more um, shall we say, full-force? There's to be a catalyst event that will hopefully kick our heros into high gear, not just about crime fighting either!
:nervous laughter: