Teen titans is not mine. Rrrr.

I am really, really grateful for all the reviews I've gotten from each of you; I know I can't do separate thanks, but I am truly thankful, regardless.

So, THANK YOU ALL!

Thanks for waiting! Review if you have time please. Sorry it's kinda short...sigh.

And now:

Waste Not, Want Not

Chapter Five: I'm Sorry

He watched her from across the shop, pretending to file things that didn't need to be filed. She was putting away books, a new shipment of rarities that they sorted through themselves before sending them out to the front. She wore a tailored white collared shirt over a black spaghetti strap that had a sloping neckline and jeans that flared slightly at the bottoms, hiding her small feet. The slope of the top revealed her smooth upper torso area, collarbones delicately defined and when she turned her head to eye a shelf that was very minutely out of reach with distaste, his eyes caught a clear sight of the milky flesh of her nape.

Dragon though he may be when one got down to it, human were his longings.

"Where do you want these?" she asked, minutes later, holding a pile of first editions in her arms. Her voice was not unkind to him yet and though it may have been only because it was the beginning of the day and he had done nothing yet to upset her for those twenty-four hours, he desired to believe it might be something else. So he did.

"I'll show you," he began and when she opened her mouth to tell him just to tell her, he added, "And help." She shut her mouth and followed him to one of the middle bookshelves. A sturdy holder, she waited patiently as one or two at a time, Malchior placed each precious binding in its rightful place and watching him, she remembered some things to be liked about the mad man before her. He was without question, very beautiful, perhaps more beautiful than Robin.

No, he was more beautiful than Robin, she admitted to herself. Magical beings tended to have an otherworldly flare though, so one could not rightly compare the two. He was intelligent and well-read, appreciative of poetries and other such literary things that Raven herself adored with a passion.

He was passionate himself.

But all these paled in the face of his actions, his choices and behaviors and she found herself looking at a man with the face of betrayal once more when he plucked the last book from her outstretched arms and placed it where it was to go.

"Thank you," she begrudged him.

"Anything for you, sweet Raven," he offered her a smile she could not accept and knowing she could not accept it, withdrew it shortly thereafter, making his way back to file things that, as said before, had no need to be filed but offered him some degree of tedious distraction.

Later when he left to walk or to do business, or whatever, she did not say goodbye, but this was customary and he did not say goodbye either, in any case.

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Malchior was a stranger to everyone else on the street, the way it was intended to be. After all, it wasn't like he was human, right? The constant half-smile that was the strangely expressionless mask he wore whenever in public was something of an art form he liked to think he had perfected. Of course, he liked to think he perfected upon most things. Language, magic, behavior, decorum, manipulation, the darker of these not being something of a shame or a burden for him but more of a testament to his longstanding stubbornness that had won out something for him in the end of everything, leading always to some sort of new beginning, he liked to think all these were facets of his aim at immaculacy.

And then there was the grandeur.

This was the world he had worked for, cut for, stolen for, schemed for: this was the world he had wanted to share with a certain dark-eyed sorceress. But things were never quite so cut and dry as all of that for the two estranged beings. Having used her once, he found her less likely to trust and when he went about it in the way that he had, well he had pretty much dashed all hopes of ever regaining that trust, or anything even minutely similar, it seemed.

But then there were those moments.

There were those strange and sad and tense moments when he thought she might have smiled at him, when he suspected she might have let his hand linger on her shoulder because it was a comfort and not a burden.

He was not all bad, much as it would have made things easier for him if he were.

No, though. He was not. As twisted, as convoluted as it may have appeared, as it may have truly been, as it may truly continue to be as he stood amongst the many moving people of the bustling metropolis, his ardent care for the woman named Raven was as true as anyone's could be. The differences laid in the edges, the corners that were darkened, stained with bad choices and worse mistakes that made it both impossible to atone for and impossibly necessary for him to keep up with, else she suspect his weakness and find some way away from him.

He could not allow that a second time. Once, a folly, twice, unforgivable and unbearable. Malchior did not believe in threes. Three was a lucky number and he knew only better than Raven herself how very unlucky the situation presented itself to them and wrapped itself around the dark magic users.

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The bell on the bookstore's door jingled invitingly as he entered for the second time. He knew he shouldn't have come, even worried he might get Rae into trouble, but he had to see her. It had been three weeks since their last encounter, since he had promised to help her. He had gone back to the cherry blossom tree every day on and off, but there was no sign of her and so, thinking three weeks was enough, he set off to check on her personally, worried and more than a little apprehensive.

"Sorry, I was in the back and..." she trailed off as she saw who it was. "You shouldn't be here. Get out of here, now," Raven warned, desperately, quietly.

"Is he here?" Richard asked.

"No," Raven said and continued to try and push him away.

"Well why then?" Richard asked stubbornly and Raven shut her eyes tightly.

"He'll know you were here," she said without thinking. He arched a brow and glanced around speculatively.

"Security cameras?" He guessed and Raven was glad he had. She didn't have explanations ready.

"Yes," she nodded.

"You're lying," he said, almost surprised that he accused her and definitely surprised that he knew he was right. How could he know such a thing?

"You're not leaving," she said and it was a statement more than a question, a resignation more than an assumption.

"Not without you," he clarified and she groaned.

"Come on then, quick," she hissed at him and grabbed his arm, dragging him bodily out the door, slamming it shut and locking it before starting off at an alarming pace away from the shop.

"Late?"

"No, you are early," she said as she continued to all but parade him down a series of streets until they ended up in the park at the cherry blossom tree.

"It's been three weeks." He eyed her caustically.

"And for good reason," Raven blew a stray strand of hair out of her face in a huff.

"I couldn't wait any longer," his voice was so gentle she paused in her upset and when he laid his hand on her shoulder she did not step away.

"That much is obvious." She tried to be indifferent.

"Look, I was worried about you okay?" Now he was beginning to get annoyed. What was her problem?

"My problem is..." Raven stopped short, realizing what she had just done. Richard moved the hand that lay on her shoulder and lifted her chin so she would look at him directly, unhindered.

"How did you do that?" It was a curious question, not menacing or demanding, just curious.

Curiosity killed the cat.

Luckily, the young man's alias was a bird.

"Do what?" she feigned innocence in vain.

"Rae," he warned softly. Her eyes implored something of him, something he couldn't put his finger on quite but they were very beautiful. Richard Grayson found himself wondering if her lips were as soft as the look of them promised, wondering what it would be like to let his mouth take in the beauty he was now noticing in the hollow of her throat...

For better or worse her voice interrupted his wandering wondering.

"I...I don't know," she finally said and he seemed to accept this because he released her chin and stepped back. If he stepped back rather quickly, Raven thought he had other reasons than the real ones flashing through his head that were now asking him what the Hell he had been thinking. His mind fought with itself. It told him to remember Star.

But wasn't there something else he should be remembering?

He barely suppressed a frustrated groan. He hated mind games, especially when he felt like he was playing them on himself.

"I accept that...for now," he told her and she crossed her arms in mute defiance as if to say 'and what of later?' But he did not answer. They watched each other for what might have been ages but was really only minutes. She took in what she already knew and Richard took in what was seemingly new to him, but for some reason could not shake the familiarity of the depth of Raven's eyes and the elegance of her face. Well, to him she was only Rae of course, so Rae's eyes and so on.

"So what did you want to talk about?" she asked and he tilted his head questioningly.

"I told you I would help you," he reminded her and she frowned.

"I was...vulnerable. I should not have accepted your offer, kind though it is. I am sorry, I must be going," she moved to push past him. He grabbed her wrist. "Hey!" Her exclamation of surprise was cut off as he whirled her around to face him and she was met with a familiar, focused, unrelenting and achingly memorable stare from two endlessly blue eyes.

It was his: I won't take no for an answer, stare.

"Rae, I told you I would help you not just because I wanted to. I do. But I need to know you, don't you understand?" He paused and she thought she might interject but he brought the hand that wasn't holding her to him to cover her lips. "No, wait. I need to know you. I need to understand why it's like you can read my mind, why it's like I can read yours. I need to know why the first time I ever saw you was at that fancy shindig going down at the Wayne Manor—" Hands abruptly removed the one covering her mouth as Raven eyed him probingly.

"You remember that?" Her remark cut him off unexpectedly; she was so quiet.

"I remember," he said firmly. She was quiet again. "But you interrupted. I need to know why even though that was the first time I saw you I feel like I've seen you a million times, in pictures, in...in...I don't know where! I have to know you Rae. Please. It's making me lose my mind. I keep telling Star we're just friends, I keep telling her not to worry, that she knows me but the more I don't know you the more I am beginning to think she doesn't know me, the more I think..." he trailed off. Raven had shut her eyes and inclined her head downward, so as to avoid his piercing gaze. "Raven, look at me."

"What did you call me?"

"Rae...ven...that's your real name isn't it?" He asked in wonder, in spite of himself, not knowing how he had known, but now all the more sure of it.

"No," she lied plainly.

"Don't give me that!" He held her firmer. "I know. I can feel I'm right and...I never finished before..."

"Don't, please Robi— Richard," she caught herself but it was too late.

"And that! How could you know that? Are you a spy? A criminal? Are you both? What? And I even know already you can't be, I...the more I think about it Raven, I feel like you're the only one who knows me and that makes no sense to me. Am I losing my mind? Weren't we strangers less than two months ago?" He was vehement now and she still wasn't looking at him, not answering him. "Look at me damn it Raven, look, at, me!" He punctuated the repeated demand and lifted her chin to him once again, and was startled to see her eyes glassy and unfocused...like they had tears in them. Remorse hit him like a truck.

He had gotten carried away.

"Raven, I'm sorry, I—" She smiled sadly at him and he felt something fall for some reason, between them, as though a wall was crumbling, stubbornly but definitely as she cupped his face between her hands.

"No, I'm sorry Robin," and she kissed him.

Sorry for the long wait. THANK YOU A THOUSAND TIMES TO: sekai no yakusoku. I adore your stories and I am thankful for your help on this chapter.

-castle

Review please. And again: YAY SEKAI NO YAKUSOKU! WHOO.