A/N: Disclaimer I don't own the Teen Titans or Naruto ok I wish I did but I don't.
Thanks to all of you who reviewed my last chapters I won't disappoint you (hopefully)
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Chapter 3: Art of Substitution
Tower
After his training session for the evening and having dinner which was eventful.
: Flashback:
After the usual Meat vs. Tofu that happens at every meal they decided to have pork stir-fry and Beast Boy could pick out the meat and just eat it with vegetables. The entire time Raven was staring at Robin still wondering what to do to make him notice her as more than a friend and teammate. Robin noticed the entire time that Raven was staring at him and let it slide.
' She's still wondering what I meant by the riddle well I'm sure Starfire helped her even if she didn't realize the fact that I like her oh well she's a smart girl I'm sure she'll figure it out eventually.' Robin thought as he took another bite of the stir-fry. There was a bit of small talk around the table when Starfire went and blabbed about her conversation with Raven.
" Robin I have a question for you."
" Yes Starfire?"
" I was wondering what friend of Raven's has something in common with a boy and she also told me it was a riddle that you gave her so I was wondering how you know this friend of Raven's that none of us have met?"
Blushing Robin almost chocked on his food at what Starfire said, " Star I'm going to explain this to you in privet after dinner Ok." Robin said looking flushed.
" Ok Friend Robin." And she returned to dinner while the others who knew who weren't fooled by the 'my friend of mine has a problem' routine knowing that Raven was indeed upset about the letter.
After dinner and explaining to Starfire that Raven was asking a hypothetical question and the she was using 'my friend' as a way for her to understand it better.
" Oh then friend Raven was using the situation as an example yes?"
" Yeah Star she was using it as an example so that she could explain the riddle to you." Robin stated.
" Yes, thank you friend Robin that makes things much clearer." She then gave him a bone-crunching hug and skipped off to her room.
' Ok one down. Now how am I going to explain this to BB and Cy?' Robin thought as he went into the training room for a little exercise.
Now all the Titans were asleep after dinner and a late night movie that they let Beast Boy pick out so of course it was a scary movie.
: Flashback:
" Dude were going to watch the Ring now everyone get in here so we can start." Beast boy screamed while Cy was already on the couch with his super sized popcorn and two liter of Mountain Dew, Starfire was hopping around the kitchen happily looking for more mustard for her to ingest while the movie would be playing. The only two titans that weren't present at this time were Raven and Robin.
Raven was in her room meditating trying not to think of Robin when she got pulled into nevermore. As Raven opened her eyes to find where she was she looked around for a couple of seconds before shouting, " Ok who ever called me here I want you out here now!" she yelled when an emotion that she hadn't seen before come strolling towards her. " Ok who are you?" 'Raven' asked.
" I'm Love nice to meet you." Said the newest emotion said extending her hand to the real Raven. This emotion looked like all the others in nevermore. Just like Raven but with a different color cape. Love's cape was deep almost black red. And she also had as little smile on her face.
" Ok where did you come from? And why did you call me here?" 'Raven' asked.
" Well I came from your feelings for Robin and I called you here to introduce myself and tell you that you love him no matter what you think you really do love him and no matter what you do I'm not going away so deal with it and have a nice day." She said before disappearing and Raven slowly broke out of her meditation and went downstairs to find Robin. Having love on board was giving Raven a sudden urge to be closer to him than she would have before all this started to happen.
Robin was in the training room still after dinner. The moment Raven walked into the room he was currently working his punching bag over with what looked like a 51 hit kicking combo. He was wearing a training gi pants, he was bare foot and shirtless but still wore the mask. Even though he was so into his training he did notice that Raven was watching him go through his paces. Inside he let himself smile while on the outside he was all business. As she walked closer she was just about to touch his left shoulder when he said, " Is there something you need Raven?" he said without looking at her.
Shocked that he knew she was there she took her hand back and asked if he was going downstairs to watch the movie with the rest of the team. Robin noticed that the entire time she was looking over he naked torso and defined arms. Smirking a bit he said he would be down in a moment after he got cleaned up a bit. Raven almost slapped herself for thinking that she wanted to take a shower with him and went downstairs before Beast Boy came looking for her and Robin and finding them together like this would diffiently give the little shape shifter bad ideas that she didn't want anyone to have about her.
As she predicted as soon as she left the training room and about 10 paces down the hall Beast Boy rounded the corner shouting her name.
" You know you could just use my communicator you don't have to shout for me." Said a very annoyed Raven.
" Yeah, I know it's just more fun to track you down. And why were you in the training room? Giving a little training to the Boy Wonder?" he said wiggling his eyebrows up and down. Unfortunately for BB that was the last thing he did before Raven enveloped him in black energy and slammed him against the wall a couple of times. " Ah dude what the hell was that for Rae?"
" Reflex." She said and walked away.
" Reflex my ass, you know ever since Rob got back she's been more on edge than normal." He was complaining not really knowing that he just stumbled onto the reason to Raven's current behavior.
: End Flashback:
Now that everyone was on the couch Cyborg on the far left then Raven, Robin, Beast Boy and Starfire ending on the right. During the movie as Starfire would latch onto BB during the scary parts, (A/N: just so you people know I didn't find the Ring particularly scary it's just that I've heard people complain that they had really bad nightmares from watching it so hence some people find it scary. Anyways back to the story.) and Raven was moving closer to Robin the longer the movie went on.
Due to his impressive gift of observation he noticed every time she moved closer to him. It was getting to the point to where she was almost sitting in his lap and before Raven knew it she had her arm wrapped around his interlacing their fingers. Now Robin looked over at her during the movie and she looked at him. As their eyes met his masked look face met her violet hues a slight blush crossed her checks. They weren't even watching the movie anymore; they just sat there starring into each other's eyes.
When the movie ended and the lights came on Raven pushed away from him and scooted to her original position on the couch before anyone noticed where she was, but still had the blush. Robin understood why she did that and inward chuckled to himself as he got up from the couch and went over to the kitchen and started a cup of tea for himself knowing Raven would join him, and as she walked over to him and grabbed her own tea cup he automatically filled her cup. The others were looking at this seen like it was some weird soap drama. Beast Boy and Cyborg were looking at it with confusion while Starfire looked at it with a bit of jealously.
' Why are they so close? Why is she spending time with 'my' Robin? Can it be that Robin likes her more than me?' Starfire was thinking as she watched the two dark titans standing in the kitchen sipping their tea after the supposed scary movie. Acting on her instincts she marched over to the kitchen and slammed her hand on the counter. As Raven and Robin looked at her. She was staring daggers and Raven and reached over and grabbed her arm from across the counter and dragged her out of the room. As BB and Cy were looking at Star dragging Rae out of the room Robin disappeared from the room while everyone was distracted.
" Man I'm sure glad that I got out of there while BB and Cy were distracted. I'm not sure what they would of asked but I am sure that I'm not ready for them to know the truth." Robin said to himself before he got to his room. As he took off his normal cloths and into his sleeping pajamas, which are wrapping his arms and legs in, clothe instead of the leather bands of his uniform, he slept in a white training gi. Before he got into bed he did his usual warm down. He did 200 headstand pushups and he took the time to practice using his charka and focusing it to his feet to walk on the wall and ceiling, when he was above his bed he let his focus go and fell onto he bed landing on his back. " Man that was one interesting day. I wonder what Raven is going to ask me tomorrow…." But just as he was saying that he saw Raven's spirit from start to come through his wall. Deciding to play a little joke on the Goth beauty he jumped up and reattached himself to the ceiling and Raven came through the wall. Since the room was dark she couldn't see him in as she looked around the room.
" Maybe he's doing some late night training?" she said to herself when she could have sworn she heard his voice in the room.
" I'm not in the training room Rae." He said from his spot in the ceiling corner.
" Robin? Where are you?" as she looked around the room franticly/.
Dropping down from the ceiling and came up from behind Raven. " You looking for me?" he asked whispering in her ear. She subconsciously stepped closer to him, a little of Love taking over at this point as she pressed her body against his. " What are you doing Raven?" he asked still whispering in her ear.
" I'm not really sure but I just want to be close to you, I need to be close to you." She purred as she started to sway her hips against him.
Pulling away from her bringing a shocked look to her face at what she'd just done he moved towards the door, " Rae I'm not sure what's going on with you today but I think that you need to think this over and if need be sleep it off." He said motioning to the door. Slowly dipping her head before reluctantly leaving his room. ' Man what had gotten into you Raven?' Robin asked himself before going to sleep.
Back in Raven's room she was sulking on her bed, ' Why did I just do that? Why did his rejection feel so bad? What the fuck is happening to me?' when she closed her eyes she found herself in nevermore. " What could it be now, I thought that I was done with this. LOVE show your little face right now or I'll banish you to the pit of my mind with anger for the rest of my life." Raven yelled to her emotions. When a deep red colored cape came into view. " About time. Now tell me why you did that, and I mean now?"
" Well first things first, yes I did do that but I'm not Love. I'm Lust." The new emotion smirked.
" Well why do you have the same colored robe? I thought all of you had different colors so I could tell you apart." The real Raven asked.
Just then Love came flying around the corner. " You beckoned Raven? Oh I see you met my twin sister Lust have you been getting along well?" Love asked looking back and forth between Lust and Raven.
" Why didn't you tell me you had a twin sister and what she could do?" Raven yelled.
" Because I thought it would be obvious that where there is Love, Lust usually follows. Besides we already told you that you love Robin it's only natural you would lust after him as well." Love pointed out.
" Ok fine just stop taking over my body and trying to screw Robin ok. After what Starfire said to us I'm not sure that she would appreciate me trying to seduce Robin." Raven pointed out.
Love looked at Lust, " You made your move at Robin Lust?"
" Yeah, and I knew he liked it." Lust replied.
" How do you know that?" Raven asked.
Chuckling lightly she smiled wickedly, " I felt it," was her answer as she walked away for the two letting Raven and Love jaw drop at the comment.
' Damn she's a slut' Raven thought when Lust replied
" You know you just called yourself a slut. And remember we can hear you in here." Lust said and Raven decided to try and get some sleep. The rest of the titans slept peacefully throughout the night.
The next morning the Titans were back to their normal routine, Robin up first for some early morning training, then it was Raven getting her usual cup of tea and then off to the roof to meditate. After that Cyborg, Beast Boy and Starfire got up around the same time. As Robin and Raven were not in the kitchen presently the three other titans were doing their favorite thing, gossip.
" So Starfire what was all that about last night with Rae and Rob?" Cy asked while he was flipping some pancakes.
" Why I don't know what you mean friend Cyborg, I was just having a conversation with friend Raven about proper behavior with someone else's friend of boys." Star said with a twinge of anger in her voice.
" So basically you're jealous of Raven and Robin being so close." BB blurted out.
" I'm not jealous of anything friend Beast Boy I was just making sure the Raven wasn't trying anything funny with my Robin." The way she emphasized 'my' gave it all away and the two of them knew it.
" Star we know you're jealous and a bit territorial when it comes to Robin so you can drop the act. Besides we didn't see them do anything that would lead us to suggest that they were hooking up. I mean all he did was pour her a cup of tea when he was having some, is that really unusual, he probably just figured that she would want some since he was having some. I think your looking into it too much Star." Cyborg said to the still fuming Tamaranian.
" Well you did not see that she was holding his hand throughout most of the scary movie that friend Beast Boy made us watch last night." Star blurted out.
" WHAT!" both Cy and BB screamed out together.
" You mean to tell me you two didn't notice that she was holding hands with Robin?"
" No we had our eyes glued to the screen last night." Cy answered, " You mean that they were 'cuddling' on the couch last night during a scary movie?"
" Yes. I can not believe that Raven would try to steal my boyfriend away from me like that." Star started to pound around the room making the plates on the counter shake with each step.
" Star just calm down a bit I'm sure that she was just a little scared, I mean you were jumping all over me last night whenever something creepy happened." BB said.
" I was just doing that so I could try to break up their cuddling friend Beast Boy."
" What!" BB yelled and face faulted to the ground.
Training Room
Robin was working on his technique when Raven came into the room. As usual he noticed her presence even before she walked in the room but he never let on.
" Robin I think we need to talk." She said still walking closer to him.
" Well talk. I'm still going to work out though." The answered throwing a couple of punches into the punching bag and finished off the move with at roundhouse kick.
" Fine. Look I'm sorry at what I did last night. God this is so hard to say." She started to mumble when he picked up where she left off.
" So which emotion took control Love or Lust?" Robin said to a now shocked Raven
" How did you know about them? I didn't know about them till last night." She said with her mouth agape
" Well by the way you acted during the movie I concluded that you were feeling something along the lines of love, and where there is love lust can't be to far behind." He put bluntly as he walked over to get a towel and dried himself off.
" So what you were playing a game with me? Leading me on with that letter?" she said now getting angry, " Was it all a big joke with the guys to see if I that you could make me fall in love with you, cause congratulations you did happy now." She said and before she could run out of the room crying Robin grabbed her arm pulling her close to him.
" You know I would never toy with your heart like that Raven. And did I hear you say you loved me?" he jabbed.
" Yeah well don't expect to hear it ever again since we're not going to be anything more than friends."
" Really why not?"
" Because of Starfire. Do you have any idea of what she said to me last night?"
" Oh I would guess something along the lines of, ' how dare you try and take my Robin away from me' or ' I don't believe that you would do something like this to me Raven, are you so cold that you can't see when you hurting your friends' or maybe she hinted at you using your empathic abilities as a way of influencing me in some way." He said. Raven was for the second time that day shocked beyond belief that Robin would know what Starfire had said to her without even being there. And when he was quoting her he almost sounded like Starfire too.
" Well if you know all that tell me what your playing at so I can go and tell her that nothing is going on between us."
" Now why would I want to do that Rae, I mean I was almost sure you would have figured out what my hidden meaning was that I put in the letter to you?" he smirked.
At this point Love say an opening and took it along with control of Raven's body, " You mean it Robin? Do you really mean that you love me?" Raven said almost crying.
" Of course Raven, or should I say Love."
Love looked shocked that Robin knew that she had taken over, " How did you know it was me? No one had ever noticed when one of us had taken over except for anger but that's rather obvious."
" Well Raven wouldn't get that emotional that quickly, now if you could put Raven back on I'm sure she would like to talk to me right now." Robin said to her emotion as she relinquished control back to the real Raven.
" I'm going to bury her in the darkest pit of my mind I swear it." Raven said angrily to her emotions.
" Now be a little nice to her Raven I'm sure that she was doing it out of the goodness of her heart. And remember it could have been worse, it could have been Lust and you know she would have jumped me," he smirked. " Although maybe that wouldn't have been that bad, for me at least."
" I'm glad you're enjoying my disturbing mental state like this, now if you please let me go so I can go and meditate. I have an emotion to torture." She said walking away from the boy wonder.
" So I take it you aren't going to tell Starfire about this little incident as well as the one last night?"
She just glared at him before leaving the training room.
' Well at least I know she does have feelings for me.' Robin thought to himself as he walked out of the training room to take a shower and get ready for the rest of the day.
The rest of the day was pretty much the usual, Starfire dragged everyone to the mall, and even Raven and they spent most of the day the guys spent in the arcade, well except for Robin. He spent the day in one bookstore after the other Waldenbooks, Barns and Noble, even Book World looking for manga and anime. It would seem that spending that time in Japan he got hooked on a couple of things. So after walking out of those stores with about 25 books he met up with the others at the arcade. After spending about five hours at the mall the team decided to head back to the tower. When they got back Raven immediately disappeared to her room while Starfire need help with all the cloths that she bought, BB and Cy were talking about the games they played and accused the other of cheating when they lost. Robin just sat down on the couch reading on of the books that he picked up at the mall.
Starfire floated over to him on the couch and asked, " Friend Robin would you mind helping me carry some of my purchases up to my room please," she batted her eyes at him. Slowly putting his book down he reluctantly helped her carry her plethora of bags and boxes to her room. Once up there he set the merchandise on the floor and started to walk out of the room when she stopped him.
" Please friend Robin may I ask you a question?"
Signing, " Yeah Star what is it?" he said sounding slightly annoyed.
She was taken back at his new attitude towards her, usually he was always friendly and cheerful around her but this was new, " Well I was wondering what our relationship is, I mean we are boyfriend and girlfriend right?"
" Star we're friends nothing really more than that, I'm sorry if you got the wrong impression about our relationship that's my fault for leading you on like that I'm sorry." And with a puff of smoke he was gone.
Starfire sank to the floor and started to cry, ' how can he not love me? What has come over him? Maybe something happened to him in that Japan place that made him change so much? Raven said it wasn't her and I believe her so what other reason could it be? Unless Raven was not being truthful with me. Oh Raven if was lying to me she will pay.'
Next day
Tension was high between Starfire, Robin and Raven, Starfire was made at Raven for supposedly steeling her boyfriend, Raven was made at Robin for thinking that he was toying with her emotions, and Robin didn't know how to handle either situation without it going very bad.
It was about 2:30 pm when the alarm went off. As usual all the titans ran to the main room to see what the alarm was about. Slade was steeling from Wayne Enterprises again.
" Hurry up guys Slade is on the move now lets go!"
As the team quickly made it across town to Wayne Enterprises to find Slade bots making sure the guards don't interfere with what Slade was doing.
The titans went in and cleared every hall that they went through. When they made it to the vault that had everything piece of important tech in it they found Slade sitting there waiting for them.
" Well, well I was beginning to wonder how long it would take you to get here. Ah Robin I see you have decided to change your outfit, and I must say I like the new look."
" Who cares what you think Slade. Titans Go!"
Starfire and Cyborg attacked together both firing their projectiles, however he dogged them easily and knocked them both out before they could move. Next Beast Boy transformed into a gorilla and clubbed Slade in the back. He actually hit him and set him flying across the floor, getting up quickly and running back to Beast Boy with all his might he caught the shape shifter in mid transformation and attacked with a flying kick to BB's head. That left Raven and Robin, also Star was starting to wake up and she rushed over to Robin and got ready for the next round. Star went in first again but this time Slade ignored her and went for Raven instead. Throwing a couple of knives at the Goth titan he smirked and said, " Good bye Raven I'm sure your lose would be the most to Robin,"
As Robin saw what was happening and the fact that Starfire didn't move to help her at all he put his entire straight and speed into a flat out sprint to reach Raven in time. He reached her just in time to intercept the knives straight into his back and he stepped in front of her.
As he fell to the ground with blood running down his back Raven just stood there in shock. Robin had sacrificed himself for her, " No Robin!" she screamed out as his body was enveloped in smoke and right before everyone's eyes Robin's body now looked like a computer server that was in the corner of the room. This took even Slade back, here he thought that for once he was rid of that pestering boy for good and now his body was gone! And before he realized it Robin was behind him and there was not just one Robin there were THREE Robin's and everyone of him had the same look on their face. ' I'm going to kill you for that' he thought and one Robin stabbed his index and middle fingers next to Slade's heart, while the other two attacked his head. One jammed his thumbs into Slade's temples through his mask as the last one did the same move to the middle of Slade's forehead that the first one did to his chest and all three walked away. Moments latter Slade was on the ground dead, blood was coming out of every opening in his mask as well as a pool of blood on the ground under where Slade's heart was.
The moves that Robin did destroyed Slade's heart and brain at the same time causing his heart to explode as well as his brain. While the other Titan's were shocked at what he had just done Raven was only cared that Robin was still alive.
" Robin!" Raven screamed as she hugged him in an almost tackle wrapping her arms around his waist and smushed her face against his stomach.
" Dude I thought you were dead." BB said.
" It's a little trick called the art of substitution. It allows me to trade places with an intimate object moments before someone's attack, very useful in a tight spot or if you don't know where someone is while they attack they leave themselves open for a counter attack. Perfect really." Robin said like it was nothing that he had just killed Slade.
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A/N: I think I will end it here for now. Hope you people aren't too mad I killed off Slade but I think it was worth it. As usual R&R