Thanks for waiting. This chapter gave me Hell. There are three other versions. I'm very sorry, I had no idea which one was not as bad as the other. Hopefully this is okay and things will pick up again next chapter.
Again thanks for waiting and do review if you can please!
Dedicated to: The Writer you Fools, alena-chan, castle in the air, and Cherry Jade
Hush
Chapter Four
Faintly Robin heard something else explode outside. He rubbed his head. Maybe he should stop them?
No that's not it, his mind chided. Stop her, it corrected and he groaned. He'd told Starfire maybe they shouldn't see each other, maybe they weren't so good for each other, maybe, maybe, maybe. But Starfire, for all her naiveté was not stupid by a long shot. The leader of the titans cringed slightly as he remembered her initial reaction.
"It's Raven!" she cried wildly, eyes glowing. Robin felt his stomach do weird things stomachs shouldn't do. Had it been so obvious?
"Yes, it's Raven," he admitted. If she'd seen right through him already, what point was there to put up another curtain between them by saying otherwise?
"Why?" Starfire asked, sadly, and yes angrily too. She had a right.
"I can't answer that," Robin said after some seriously bloody mental debate with himself.
"You think Aqualad will take her!" Starfire guessed and Robin was beginning to wish the Tameranian wouldn't be so on the money about everything suddenly when most of the time she was so far off that it was hardly relevant.
It was disconcerting.
"I think Aqualad has feelings for Raven," Robin said and rubbed his temples. "Star, I'm sorry. I love you, I do, but it's not love like the kind..." he trailed off.
"Like the kind you feel for her," Starfire filled in, unable to say her 'friend's' name.
"No, I didn't say that," Robin cut in and the Tameranian tilted her head to one side, genuinely confused now, anger seeping out of her as understanding took its place.
Naturally, she was a kind girl after all. Still...
"But then..." she left the question in the air.
"I do not know if I love Raven," Robin said, knowing full-well he was attracted to the literati but not at all certain of what lay beyond it except that it out-spanned what he felt for the beautiful alien by a long-shot, for better or for worse. He'd sort those things out later if he could, for now he had to simply cut some ties.
"And yet you know you do not...love me?" Green eyes threatened tears, but not high-school girl sobs, just sad ones...hurt ones. He looked away. Guilt was crashing down around him without meeting her stare.
"Not in the way you want me to," he said and then steeled himself to meet Starfire's gaze again, telling himself to suck it up. He was leader here; he owed it, especially to someone like Star, to be direct in such a matter. "I cannot be unfair to you Star. You should know the truth: I do care for you, but I would not lie once I knew the extent of my feelings." And for all his internal posturing, his eyes fell again from hers, clouded and disgusted with himself for his unintentional charade of feeling.
She lifted a hand to trace his jaw.
"I think you are worried, friend Robin, that I do not like you any more after this," she said and he didn't fail to notice the old customary 'friend' return as a prefix for his name—something she had dropped when they began first to date.
"I am," he said softly.
"Do not worry friend Robin," she said and kissed him on the cheek. "Let me know though, friend Robin, when you find that someone you want to love you as I wanted you to love me," she requested.
"Of course Star, you'll be the first to know," he said automatically even as part of him kicked himself for it.
And that's how it had happened.
Another something exploded outside and Robin considered for the second time going out to call a halt to Raven's lessons with the Atlantian as he stirred his coffee, thoughtful and just a little more than confused.
Raven.
He knew he was attracted. He knew that. Who wouldn't be? Curves that could kill, was that the saying?
Maybe he'd made it up.
Well she does, his mind snickered and he scowled at his uncontrolled hormones. Those jerks, he thought blandly. Make everything so difficult!
He sighed.
Another explosion came on the sigh's heels.
And he stood to go to the roof. Maybe he should clear his head...and maybe he could catch a glimpse of the 'lessons' going on down below while he was up there...damage control, or whatever.
Two birds with one stone.
He grimaced at the cliché and poured the rest of his coffee into the sink before he set off towards the stairwell to the top of Titans' Tower.
On his way there was yet another explosive noise.
"Shit, what are they doing!" he muttered and hurried on.
---------------------------------------
"Now just concentrate...Raven?"
I am! The empath fumed...silently of course.
Something blew up in the distance, making a definitive amalgamation of crashing, banging and shattering.
DAMMIT!
Aqualad winced.
Lessons could have been worse so far.
They could have been better too.
He sighed.
Raven wasn't used to not being able to control every aspect of her person—thoughts and all—so when she failed to order them effectively for a consecutive five times, she became rather...
Irate.
Yes, that's the word.
DAMMIT!
Something ELSE exploded in the distance. What was that the sixth or the seventh? He'd lost count some time ago.
"Maybe we should call it quits for the day?" Aqualad suggested, trying to keep the reluctance out of his own voice; he didn't want Raven any more aggravated than she was but he was loathe to separate from her before he had to. All of their focusing had been on the lessons today and so far he hadn't even been able to subtly edge in any companionable conversation.
Of course, maybe that was a good thing.
She'd made it rather clear how she felt about people touching her when he'd made the presumptuous mistake of putting his arm around her. It was a friendly gesture as he'd meant it, maybe to become more some other day, but it didn't matter how he'd meant it then or another time. Fact was, Raven Roth did not like human contact—or Atlantian or Changeling or Bionic man or Tameranian contact for that matter.
It was one of those unwritten rules you tried not to break for fear of lightning striking you down on the spot or being tossed headlong into a foreign dimension where the only company you had were the metal spikes sticking through your middle.
He winced again but managed to eye the irritated sorceress with a little amusement now. She stood, arms crossed, hood thrown back and her brow was knit in the way of one too long confused by the same stupid phrase in a cross-word puzzle.
"Raven?" he said a little louder. Maybe she hadn't heard his suggestion.
The mental sigh she sent his way told him otherwise.
How long is this supposed to take? Her mutinous look had dulled to something along the lines of frustrated. The Atlantian empathized. Even for he who had been raised to train his thoughts as such had had difficulties. It must be harder for one used to focusing all control on emotions but able to let the thoughts connected run amuck.
"It varies really but—"
It can't vary! I have to do this now! She snapped in his mind, her words zinging like arrows. If I don't I can't fight! I'm useless!
Now he understood a little more and Aqualad did his best not to take Raven's hand in his or something like that, knowing that unlike others, she would probably only shy away from it...or toss him off the roof—where they'd decided to have their lessons that day.
She was afraid, he sensed. And just as quickly as he sensed that, he also sensed she would not want him to know that. He put it aside.
"You are not useless, my friendly, neighborhood empath," he teased and this won him a scowl instead of the desperate look she'd worn seconds before. This pleased him and he continued, "You will probably learn faster than most. Robin knows this already, this mind-blocking, which is odd because he is human, but I gather his mentor had something to do with being particularly 'guarded' on all fronts."
Here they shared a secret smile, one maybe a little wider than the other, but both had upward curves to their lips.
But I can't do anything, even if I do master this thought-training...I can't control my power! She flung out her arms, hands aglow slightly with the familiar power but not anywhere near the force to reckon with she normally concocted.
He considered.
"Maybe with the thoughts all restrained, you might be able to direct your abilities through telepathy like mine?" he suggested. Raven's eyes widened, surprised.
One can learn telepathy? I thought you had to be born with such things. She uncrossed her arms though, a little hopeful now in spite of herself.
"Not exactly," Aqualad said and Raven stepped a little closer, interested. "You're doing it now," he added with a smile.
But how could I control it? I don't even think I'm using telepathy so much as you're reading my mind! She puzzled on this with her brow knit, frustrated, and Aqualad must have stepped closer to her too; they were barely a foot apart.
Neither noticed though...not really.
"That I do not know, but in time, we will probably be better able to gauge the likelihood...but since you're able to do some semblance of it now without training, it's more than likely you'll have that as an option from hereon out, however long it takes you to get your voice back," Aqualad said somewhat apologetically. He felt bad for not being able to give her a more positive or helpful answer.
But he wouldn't lie. It wasn't in his nature. And besides, Raven would wouldn't buy it anyway...a lie.
Then I guess I should try again. Raven thought, resigned, and he nodded in encouragement, a slight incline of his head, no more.
He was beginning to understand that the girl in front of him was all about subtlety.
"Now focus," he instructed simply and they resumed their lessons.
Or they would have.
The door to the top of the tower swung open.
"Raven?" the masked vigilante was caught off-guard. He'd though they'd taken their lessons out on the shore; they had left through the front door after all. Then he slapped his forehead—mentally of course. Raven had probably teleported them up to the roof. That was one power she didn't need her mantra for.
"Robin," Aqualad said and Robin felt some kind of angry growl in his chest that suspected the Atlantian was greeting him for both himself and the nonverbal empath beside him. She nodded at him.
"So...how's it going?" he tried to be cryptic, feigning ignorance of the previous multitude of obvious blasts from earlier.
Explosions in the background and a fixed look of impassiveness on Raven's face told him his pretense had been duly noted.
And of course, seen right through.
He laughed—a little mixture of is inherent confidence and unusual nervousness. A silent and annoyed Raven was quite possibly more dangerous than an annoyed vocal one—at least she gave some warning then.
"Well enough," Aqualad answered and Raven turned her glower on the water-wielding titan, to Robin's relief, among other things. Aqualad however, just shot her a dangerously charming grin, one that Robin himself had thrown Raven's way once or twice
But it was somehow different now, the exchange being between her and the Atlantian rather than her and him, him being Robin of course.
And the masked boy wonder—or blunder as some might have it—was vaguely aware of his jaw clenching as it tended to do whenever his expression became rather forced. So engrossed in controlling his own confounding emotions, he barely noticed when Aqualad's stare turned back on him and the Atlantian said:
"Robin, is something wrong? Raven says you have that look."
She would read him like a book, he mused dryly and only just held back a laugh.
"Nothing, just checking on how things were going," he lied seamlessly but felt the skeptical gaze of a certain sorceress on him all the way back through the door to the tower.
Review, and so on with a please and a thank you, as always.
(smiles and runs off to do that OTHER midterm paper...IT NEVER ENDS! AHHHHHHH)
-rei