Cognitive Dissonance

Chapter Five: Guilt by Association

Okay, so she probably shouldn't do it.

Robin was sick. Really sick—so much worse than Terra had been expecting. Last night, when Beast Boy had coaxed her out of the computer room to play cards, she'd learned a very important lesson: never try to surprise Robin when he was sleeping. Well, maybe he hadn't really been sleeping, but he wasn't exactly conscious. It was that kind of restless not-sleeping that you did when you were upset about something. Or sick. In any case, Beast Boy had only been playing around, and he hadn't meant to scare him, or whatever (he had told her so, later that night). They had all been shocked when Robin had lashed out and grabbed Beast Boy's arm. He'd apologized afterward but never explained why…

And it had been especially unnerving for Terra, because he had kept looking at her, suspiciously, like he knew. Knew what she had been trying to do, what she would have done if that lousy computer hadn't decided to lock her out. Lately, she hadn't been able to really talk to Robin without wondering what he was thinking about: if he was planning on analyzing her to death any time soon. Probably was. Robin analyzed everything.

But she was going to talk to Robin. She probably shouldn't do it. She definitely shouldn't do it, actually, not after last night. And not after Raven had told them all, in no uncertain terms, that he was really sick and needed to sleep and that they were absolutely not supposed to bother him

Terra was going to do it anyway.

She paused outside the door for a few seconds, trying to collect her thoughts. Tossing the jar of peanut butter she'd been holding from one hand to the other, she pulled the spoon out of her mouth and stuck it back in the jar. It was protein, and she was supposed to eat fifty grams of that every day, according to Robin. Exhaling sharply, she moved to stand in front of the door's threshold; she had planned on knocking, but it opened automatically. Which made sense, now that she thought about it, because for all his paranoia, Robin did usually keep his door open if he was in his room.

"Robin! You're awake! Can I talk to you?"

"Sure." He nodded weakly, or as weakly as Robin did anything. He was awake, but looked as if he'd just woken up, and his voice was a little bit slurred.

Terra took that as permission to walk into his room. Everything was so clean and it bothered her, for some reason. Bed, desk, floor, walls, ceiling. Nothing that didn't absolutely have to be in somebody's room. Didn't he ever get bored in there? Oh yeah: he didn't go in there much; he was mostly working. Yuck.

It occurred to her that she should be polite and say how sorry she was that he wasn't feeling good, so she did.

"It's not your fault," he said quickly, reassuringly. "And please don't think that it had anything to do with last week, when you were sick. I think that was just a twenty-four hour thing."

"Sick?" asked Terra, stuffing some peanut butter in her mouth so she could take some time to think of a good answer. When had she…whoops. That was the only problem with lying: you had to remember what you'd said. But Terra was the best liar that she knew, so she collected herself quickly. "Oh, right, sick! Yeah, I'm glad that you don't think I gave it to you or anything like that."

Robin seemed like he had something to say, but it got lost when he had to turn his head and cough into his pillow.

When he found his voice again, Terra decided to address the real reason why she had come to bother him. "Can…well, can I ask you some things?" Nice and innocent.

Lovable smile. She hoped he'd go along with that.

He nodded slowly. "Okay."

Terra wanted something to sit in, and the chair next to Robin's desk looked like a good candidate, so she twisted it around and leaned against its back. This seemed to really bother Robin. He always had to have things done the right way, whatever way that might be. "Well, you know that I haven't been here for very long, and I don't exactly know everything there is to know about all the guys we fight… And…umm…I just wanted to know." She couldn't think of anything good to add on to that sentence so she just waited to see what he'd say.

"Wanted to know what?"

Well, that was helpful. But she had to ask it. After what Beast Boy had said to her last night, about Robin and Slade, Terra knew that he'd be the one to ask if she wanted a different opinion. And she did. Because when Terra thought about Slade, she got all tingly and couldn't think clearly; she needed to ask someone who could.

"What's really so bad about Slade, Robin? I know we fight him and I know you all say he's bad and stuff, but how do you know? How can you be sure? What's he done that's so horrible?" Terra heard herself speaking faster and faster as she got down to the words that she'd always considered forbidden, the ones she swallowed every chance she got…

It took Robin awhile to answer. He looked a little upset; Terra hoped he wasn't mad at her already. "I know, okay. We all know." He coughed again, shuddering. "Slade is…Terra, take the factorial of the most horrible person you can imagine, and you'll start to have some idea of how execrable he is."

"Huh?" Terra had no earthly idea what a factorial was or where she was supposed to 'take' it. People shouldn't be that smart; it wasn't fair.

"He's bad, okay?"

Well, he could have just said that. Not that that was much help, either. "That's what you guys said to me before. But I just don't get it. Just because a person has done some bad things, does that make them, you know, bad?"

Robin didn't seem to like that. At all. He sat up straighter, much straighter, as if what he really wanted to do was stalk across the room, pick her up, and shake her. "No. Terra, no. There are two kinds of people: good and bad, wrong and right. You're either on the side of the law…or you're not."

Then he sneezed, and if his words hadn't scared her as much as they did, she would have burst into giggles right then and there, because it just looked so ridiculous.

But she was scared: those two kinds of people…Terra wasn't sure which one she was. Or which one Slade was. She wished there were more than two kinds, but Robin seemed so sure... "Are you saying that there's no forgiving people, not anyone, just for doing a few bad things?" She absently tugged at her hair with her hand that wasn't clutching the peanut butter jar. "You can never know if they'll keep doing them or not, right? You'd have to give them another chance, right?"

"Are you going to give them another chance when they've killed you and everyone you care about?"

That was stupid; Slade would never do that. "Well, no, I guess not—I mean, of course you shouldn't kill people and stuff," she said, trailing off when she couldn't think of how the ideas connected anymore.

Robin leaned over to grab a tissue from the box beside his bed; Terra almost got up to bring it to him but he sent her a look that said, don't you dare.

After a few seconds of awkward silence, she thought of something good to say. "Umm, so say I have this friend, and he did something, you know, bad. But, I mean, he's not a bad person, really he's not, so I just don't understand how you know, what you look at to tell which one of the two kinds of people he's supposed to be. You know? Maybe he's, like, sorry and stuff, you know?" Terra couldn't remember if she was talking about herself or Slade. Maybe both.

"Terra, bad people are bad people. It's as simple as that." And oh, but it was simple for him, so simple it was nauseating; it would never be simple for her. "And Slade's not just bad, he's evil, and he can never 'be sorry' enough to make him good," he added, something she didn't understand on his face. His eyes suddenly were back on her, focused so tightly she wondered if he could see into her mind. "Who's this friend?" he asked in a very dangerous voice that she didn't like at all.

"Oh, oh, nobody important," said Terra, waving the hand that was clutching the plastic spoon. Well. Maybe she had fooled him.

Looking at him anxiously, trying to figure out if she had, she realized his face looked absolutely ashen. He really was sick. Terra was starting to feel badly about asking him. "Hey, Robin? Are you okay?"

And before Terra had time to say anything else, he had hauled himself out of bed, hands shaking visibly. "I…I need to go take care of something." Terra had never heard him sound more upset than he sounded now, not ever.

"Umm—but—where are you going?"

"Gym." It was almost a curse word, the way he said it. "And we'll talk about-- Tell your 'friend' that we'll talk about him later."

Uh oh. Definitely didn't fool him, then. Her stomach felt heavy. Maybe he would forget. Right. Like Robin ever forgot anything.

Except maybe his shoes, because he tripped over them and just barely kept from falling. Terra made a little gasping noise and covered her mouth with her hands. She'd never seen him like this. Given, she hadn't known him for very long, but Terra had figured out that Robin was pretty much not clumsy at all. Oh, this was bad. Really, really bad. He laced them up severely, completely ignoring her.

When he brushed unceremoniously past her, Terra got up and followed him out the door because she felt like it was the only acceptable thing to do. "Well, I don't really think you should do that…because you're sick and stuff… and... did I say something wrong? I'm sorry…really, I am…are you mad at me? Robin?"

Robin sneezed into his hand, not looking at her. Oh, god, he looked sick. He couldn't even walk in a straight line. Terra sincerely doubted that he would make it ten steps down the hall, let alone all the way to the gym.

"Okay, well, I'll see you…later?" Her voice echoed after him but he didn't respond.

Terra watched him go, counting out his steps and feeling a bit better when he did make it past ten. He was unsteady, though. And Terra had watched Robin train enough times to know that the idea of him surviving his normal routine was definitely out of the question. Before he turned the corner and she lost sight of him entirely, Terra saw him stumble and just manage to keep his balance.

Uh uh.

She had to do something. It was all her fault that he was mad, but he wasn't listening to her and she just couldn't think of anything that would make everything okay. Terra twisted the spoon around in the peanut butter jar for a long moment, running through her options. She should go tell somebody. But she couldn't bring herself to upset Starfire and Beast Boy was so freaked out about last night that he wouldn't want to get anywhere near him and Cyborg would just say they should leave him alone—and Terra didn't think he should be left alone.

But Raven. Yeah. Raven would be good. She did that creepy mind-reading thing.

Crud, crud: that means I have to go knock on her door!

"Hey…Raven?" Raven Your Highness, Your Excellency, Raven-Please-Don't-Kill-Me. "Are you in there? Are you busy?"

Silence. Terra wondered if this was really such a good idea.

"It's me; it's Terra," she said, twisting her hair. "I kind of need your help. It's…I think it's an emergency."

Some more silence. And then finally, a small crack opened in the door, just a few inches. "You're got five seconds," said Raven, the hood of her cloak pulled up over her head.

"I-think-there's-something-really-wrong-with-Robin-you've-gotta-help-me-I-don't-know-what-to-do!" It all came out, breathlessly, as one word. Well, she'd said that Terra had five seconds; she wasn't going to waste them.

The door opened a bit wider. "What's wrong with him?"

"I don't know," said Terra, a bit more relaxed after her five seconds were up and Raven hadn't slammed the door in her face. "Well—okay, I kind of do, I guess—I went to talk to him about some stuff, and I guess he got really mad at me or whatever, because he said he was gonna go train. And I don't think he should train now, Raven, I really don't."

"Train?" Raven asked incredulously. She didn't even seem mad about Terra bothering Robin.

Terra nodded. "Yeah, train, and he was really bad off when he left for the gym, and I got so worried, so I thought you might be able to help because of your…you know... powers…"

"Right. I'll take care of it," said Raven, pulling off her hood in a swift, elegant motion. Her door slid open the rest of the way. "Thanks for letting me know."

They stared at each other for a moment that somehow took forever and no time at all. Terra couldn't really pinpoint the exact point at which Raven had stopped being her number-one enemy, but she figured it had something to do with what Beast Boy had told her on her first night here, about being friends. You fought with your friends, but you also stood by them and helped them when they were in trouble—and Terra was starting to appreciate that. Terra was also starting to understand some things about Raven, like how she seemed to glare at everybody as if she wanted to exterminate them…but didn't really mean it.

You knew those kinds of things, when you were friends with somebody.

"No problem," said Terra. "He's in the gym, like I said. I'd hurry."

"Don't need to tell me twice." And she teleported out of sight in an unsettling flash.

"But I didn't tell you…oh, never mind," Terra said to the empty hallway. Raven hadn't even locked her door. She must have been really worried.

"Oh my fair, gothic princess?" A boyish voice from just around the corner. "Cyborg wants me to tell you that he's making dinner in fifteen minutes and we need to know if you're going to be eating with us or spending the evening with your tea and creepy old books…" Beast Boy realized who he had been talking to. "Wow, I didn't expect to see you down here…not that it's not awesome that you're down here, but…yeah."

Terra waved, feeling that spontaneous smile creep over her face. "Hey! Raven's not here right now: umm, she had to…take a shower." For some reason, Terra didn't think it would be a good idea to tell him what Raven was really doing.

"Figures that the one time somebody actually needs her, she'd be out of her room," Beast Boy muttered. He glanced over Terra's shoulder, through the half-open door behind her. "Weird that she didn't lock her door. Or even close it."

"Well, we could always…see if there's anything interesting in there." Terra giggled.

His eyes widened sharply and he backed away, shaking his head. "Dude, no way; I so learned my lesson the last time I snuck into her room."

"You did…what?"

Beast Boy grinned. "Yeah, me an' Cy were just trying to talk to her this one time, but her door was unlocked, and we didn't mean to go in there…but we definitely found more than we wanted to find."

"What was in there?" asked Terra, caught between fascination and horror.

"Tons of creepy stuff, but mostly some whacked-out portal into her brain. It was really dangerous, and she was really mad at us. But of course, I saved everyone with my awesome powers, and the whole thing was all right in the end."

Somewhere in the back of her mind, Terra wasn't sure if that was exactly the way things had happened, but it made her laugh anyway. "That's great. Really…great." She took a deep breath and tried to think of something else to say. Their shoes were almost touching each other…

"So, Cyborg's making dinner soon, huh?" she finally asked, when she'd gotten tired of listening to her heart threaten to stop working.

He shifted nervously. "Yeah. Knowing him, it'll have disgusting animal products in it because he's a murderer like that."

"I'm sorry," said Terra.

"Oh no, I was just kidding: it's practically a law that we have to fight about every meal we eat. I'll just plot to get even with him in some horrifying way or another—and you can totally help, of course." He smiled with his eyes: the way he looked at her with absolute faith and…something else.

"I'd like that, yeah," she said, and she could have sworn that she was just planning to reach out and poke him. But somehow she ended up touching his hand, then weaving her fingers through his.

He looked down, as if this was a difficult math problem that he had five seconds to solve. "Really? Great! 'Cos it would be really…great. You know: if you wanted to." His voice cracked, but Terra thought that was cute. "And I…can't remember what we were talking about. Ugh, I'm sorry. I fail at this game."

"What game?"

"Well…" Beast Boy tried to look her in the eyes but ended up looking straight at her left ear. "It's the game I'm so bad at that I can't even say what it is."

He didn't even need to say it: Terra had a pretty good idea of what it was, anyway. She squeezed his hand reassuringly. "Well, in case you were wondering, the answer is yes."

"Really?" he yelped, letting go of her as if he'd been shocked. "I mean, of course, I guess I should make sure we're on the same page, right? You do mean that…y'know…with me…and stuff?"

She put her arms around his neck—it wasn't hard because he wasn't any taller than she was—and told the warning sirens in her head to stuff it.

"I totally mean it. With you. And stuff."

And then, Terra didn't think about much else, because somehow they were kissing. She didn't know who had started it, and she didn't care. She'd never done this before, and it was pretty clear that he hadn't, either: he didn't seem to know what to do with his hands, but she sure didn't have any suggestions. For a terrifying moment, she worried that she wasn't doing it right, but then the only thing she worried about was that she'd start smiling like an idiot—because you couldn't really do that when you were kissing someone.

It was a lot wetter than she'd expected. In a good way. She felt warm and happy when they broke apart.

"Well, say something!" He was blushing and had gone back to looking at her left ear.

Now she could smile. "Umm…I think it's about time…Cyborg…dinner…and all that."

"Yeah. Dinner. And Cyborg. And dinner. That would be good," he agreed.

About halfway to the kitchen, his arm found its way around her waist. Terra leaned into him cautiously, even when what she really wanted to do was to run down the hall screaming, I have a boyfriend! It made her feel…complete, somehow. Much better than she'd felt in a long time. And somehow, all of the problems she'd had that evening didn't seem important anymore—she couldn't even remember why she'd been so upset about them in the first place, because who could be upset when they had a boyfriend? Things were easier this way. She still didn't understand that not-quite-nervousness that settled in the middle of her chest when he touched her, but she was absolutely positive that she never wanted it to go away.

She could handle anything, now.