Super huge thank you to everyone who has given me the time of day by reading this little whatever it is...haha. Super extra enormous thank you to those who have read and reviewed. You know they mean a lot to me, more than I can say!
They really motivate me and make my day a lot better. So like I said, thank you so much!
For those asking, if it's not there already, this is indeed one of those AqualadxRavenxRobin things...Triangle-ish to a T.
I've decided to hopefully clear some confusion, RAVEN'S thoughts/speaking through her mind shall all be BOLD AND ITALICIZED.
Anyone else's 'thoughts' including Aqualad's telepathy will simply be italicized as in all my other fics, to keep life a little bit more simple.
Okay then, without further ado:
This chapter is dedicated to: The Writer you Fools, alena-chan, castle in the air, and Cherry Jade...their stories are wonderful! Even if raexrob is not your thing, their plot and prose is something to behold, so give it a chance if you have some extra time. If raexrob IS your thing uh...what are you doing here? Go read theirs.
Hush
Chapter 5
Raven considered the boy wonder, sitting at the counter, sipping his coffee.
This would not have been an unusual picture, but for the fact that it was the ripe old time of 10:49.
Coffee at this hour?
She arched a brow that went ignored because, as she'd gathered moments earlier, dear Robin was pointedly not looking at her or in her general direction. Reclining thoughtfully on the couch, Raven lay relaxed with her arms behind her and after another five minutes or so of scrutinizing sighed.
Fine, if he wanted to be stubborn...
Oh she knew how to handle him when he got like this.
A rare grin lit in her eyes as she quietly set to work, right behind him, remaining on the couch, all her preparations hidden from him in any case by the back of the couch, just her eye peering over it at the inscrutable back of his head.
Robin sipped at the lukewarm coffee.
He hated lukewarm coffee.
Who wouldn't?
And on an awkward afternoon such as this, it only tipped of the berg of it all. He was well aware of the pair of violet eyes boring into him like two homing lasers, well aware that she was trying to read him. Stiffening, he tried to make his posture more rigid, if possible, which it wasn't because of his tendency to slouch at the counter. Elbows lax on its top and one hand with the coffee mug, his position didn't change much as he all but sulked.
Aqualad had gone back to the ocean for a short while, to reconvene with whomever down below, and then said he was to go to Titans' East to make sure they knew of his whereabouts and why.
And that had left them alone, just the two birds—the others gone out for reasons ranging from clothes shopping to video gaming.
So there he sat, sipping coffee at—he looked at the clock on the wall—11:04 now.
But he realized the presence of eyes delving into him had disappeared and, irrepressibly interested, he moved to turn on the barstool to check if she had fallen asleep...
...only to get hit in the face with an airplane.
Blinking, he watched as it fluttered to the ground.
Right.
A paper airplane.
"What the Hell was that for?" Robin got up, stalking over to Raven, who had the fixed look of someone trying very, very, very hard not to smile.
Casually she aimed and threw another paper missile at the bridge of his nose.
"Gah!"
Contact, her eyes danced as Robin batted the flimsy paper away, now mimicking one of Raven's coined expressions of the arched brow mixed with a 'you better explain yourself, or else' stare.
She barely repressed a smirk. She knew her own stares well enough.
"Raven..." he began, but stopped as she held up a hand and mouthed a sentence to him. Robin sighed. "What?" She tried again, moving her lips slower this time.
And like a dutiful student, Robin focused on them.
Problem was, somewhere in between resolving to try and read lips and starting to actually do it, Robin forgot all that as he inched closer, vaulting over the back of the couch to settle next to the empath. Now less than a half a foot apart, the boy wonder did indeed concentrate on reading dear Raven's lips.
But he also wondered about another way to read them.
Maybe this was how he could decide...no...figure out, how he felt.
You know how you feel, some voice said rather tiredly but Robin being Robin, he ignored it.
He leaned closer and Raven stopped trying to mouth to him what she meant.
Meanwhile, dear Raven's expression faltered from smug to perplexed as she carelessly poked Robin in the chest to get his attention, not realizing she already had it in full.
Earth to boy blunder, she intoned mentally.
To her disconcert, he simply grasped that hand with one of his own.
Robin...? She thought she should move, pull her hand back, demand an explanation for what on earth he was doing...whatever that was.
And she might have.
But the doors opened with their trademark mechanized whir and she and Robin turned their gazes towards it. Aqualad stood there wearing a most peculiar expression, a repressed grimace perhaps.
"Am I interrupting?" he inquire, polite as always, though noticeably more terse than usual, his ebony eyes focused quizzically on Robin's hand clasping Raven's.
Noticing him noticing, Raven withdrew her hand and shook her head at the Atlantian.
No, you're not. She placed both of her hands carefully in her lap. Aqualad tilted his head to one side dubiously.
Yes, you are. Robin's thinking was of course otherwise.
"Alright..." Aqualad said, uncertainty evident as much as the unwillingness to question either of the uncomfortable birds right out. But not all interrogations had to be out loud and his stare moved soon from Raven, who he proffered a short smile, to Robin, who he proffered nothing of the sort. The feelings, as some might say, were mutual, as Robin did his best to match the expressionless expression.
And that was something to behold.
Robin sitting, still unnecessarily close to Raven in Aqualad's opinion; Aqualad standing almost in the attitude of having caught someone doing something they shouldn't, to Robin's irritation. Just where did the ocean-going titan get off making him feel guilty for exploring a curiosity?
It wasn't like he wasn't doing the same thing, the leader of the titans thought, annoyed, as he continued to hold Aqualad's stare, neither willing to yield, neither willing to admit what was obvious to both of them.
But not so obvious to the empath between them, who for all her cleverness and intellect, could not fathom the reason for what seemed to her to be their uncalled for antagonism. Born a half-demon, raised with the destruction of two worlds in her life, past and present, seen as nothing better for too long than a criminal herself, Raven was no more capable of understanding her own beauty than accepting it.
So she sat there, eyes trying without success to exact what information she could from the two silent superheroes, eventually rolling her eyes in temporary defeat.
About to stand to leave the pair to their increasingly vexing staring contest, Raven paused as the doors opened again, this time giving way to Starfire—looking somewhat calmer than the last time Robin had seen her, a couple grocery bags in hand—and the other two titans—Cy and BB, a stack of technology magazines and new video games in arms, respectively.
"Ah! Friend Aqualad," Starfire smiled brightly, nodding at him as she passed him into the kitchen. She failed to notice—luckily—Cyborg and Beast Boy making motions at Robin behind her back that seemed to signify the cutting of throats, severe indigestion and much upset about the five or six grocery bags Star had brought in.
Apparently she'd accepted Robin's decision...and was now making the Pudding of Friendship. As they had recently cleaned all 'blue fuzzy things' from the refrigerator—'Thank Azar' Raven's comment had echoed them all—Star had decided to compensate with a slew of extra 'special' ingredients.
Such delightful things as shiitake mushrooms, instant raspberry JELLO, anchovies, some unidentifiable things she insisted were edible since they came from the grocery store—at which point Raven felt like pointing out that they sold other quite inedible things, like toothbrushes...and Clorox.
But she couldn't, so she didn't even have to bite her tongue to stop from saying it.
Aqualad heard her thought however, and rendered a good-natured chuckle, which caught her attention and she flashed him the tiniest of grins, almost a paradox, but not quite, because a smile such as the one she gave him was so bright, it could not be described in any other fashion.
This Robin saw.
"Ahem," Robin coughed, dragging his attention by the scruff of its neck from the quiet sorceress's exchange with the Atlantian and back to the dire situation all of them found themselves now in. "Uh, Star," he began and approached the kitchen where the others could already hear the sounds of their demise...er...dinner, being prepared.
Cyborg sported an unusual pallor and Beast Boy seemed more a light mint shade than his normal vivid grass green. Raven, for her part, was simply glad they had all come in when they did.
Aqualad and Robin had been acting, as Starfire had taken to saying: 'just plain freaky.'
Or at least weird.
Thoughtful, she decided to question both of them...but later.
Presently, she turned her amethyst eyes on the kitchen scene as Starfire piled an assortment of measuring cups and a mixing bowl and spoons and the like into poor Robin's arms as he tried to dissuade her from her culinary endeavor.
"And we shall need three cups," she said and put three different cups into the bowl already in Robin's hands. She'd taken careful notes to change her Tameranian measurements to earth ones the last time she'd made a native dish...which was quite a while ago as each of the other titans could thankfully vouch.
But all good things must come to an end...or something like that.
"Star—"
"And two teaspoons," she continued, blissfully engrossed with the task at hand as she missed Robin's defeated sigh and added, "And..." she paused here, brow furrowing. Peering around the towering pile of kitchen accessories to smile at Robin's faltering profile, she said apologetically, "Friend Robin what is the conversion on earth for a Vorklark and half a Blorgnaut?"
A what and a what?
Across the room Raven arched a brow, as did Aqualad and, turning to each other, each noticed the similar expression and they laughed—Raven silently of course, but her inner laughter came through in spiraling waves to the telepath and he reveled in it. Perhaps now, her disposition so lightened, would be a good time to ask her to walk with him? He would like that, not a lesson or a mission, just some time with her...with Raven.
Yes, he would like that.
"Gah!" Robin's foot must have slipped on something and amidst the clattering and clanging of things hitting the kitchen tiles, there were also quite a few thuds and clunks as even more of those things hit various parts of Robin on their way down to the floor. He groaned. Starfire yelped in concern. Cyborg shook his head with a rueful smile, looking up from his mechanics brochure momentarily. Beast Boy, quite taken with his new game, did not notice, but it wasn't really his fault and it wasn't like Robin would have particularly desired for the changeling to witness this less than dignified moment in his life. Eyes widening, Raven levitated over hurriedly.
Aqualad followed, irked that Robin's fall had come at exactly the moment he'd been about to ask Raven to join him on the roof, or elsewhere for a talk, irked, because some part of him—a part greener than Beast Boy's skin, if he was honest with himself—felt that indeed the boy wonder must have timed his accident just right, in time to thwart his efforts.
That was silly of course, the Atlantian conceded grudgingly just as fast, but still.
It was clear the leader of the titans had a thing for the empath.
But hadn't he been dating Starfire?
What was he doing moving in on Raven?
Was he moving in on Raven?
"Friend Robin, are you alright? Is your body of the aching? Have you the sight of many small birds circling your head? How many Garvlorks does it take to make a Beezlenark?" the frantic alien circled Robin, bobbing up and down in concern. Robin was simply trying to figure out what on earth—or rather, on Tameran—a Garvlork was and indeed, how many it took to make a...what was it...Beexlernork? He couldn't ever keep those names straight, no matter how hard he tried.
He'd made a pretty valiant effort during their relationship to learn to understand some Tameranian, though not speak it, which was harrowing to even think about. He was about to tell Star it was okay and that if she would please give him a little more space he would try and get to his feet, but someone beat him to it.
A hand laid itself gently on the beautiful alien girl's shoulder and she turned, green eyes bright with worry to face cool amethyst ones that said: he's fine; he's Robin, so he's fine by default. They also seemed to say: let him breathe.
Raven had a good way of communicating some things without words, as it was, and Starfire nodded softly, her earlier conversation with Robin still raw in her mind as her previous fervor about friendship pudding dimmed. It wasn't that she didn't honestly want to renew bonds of friendship. She did. It wasn't that she didn't dearly love Robin and Raven. She did. It was simply that the truth was Starfire had never felt anything for anyone like she had her leader, and it being only the night of their break-up—which it was clear no one else knew about—her heart ached, as might be expected of anyone...Tameranian, and human alike.
Starfire went about gathering the fallen mixing bowls and cups and so on.
Aqualad still stood where he and Raven had been standing before the incident, and watched carefully as Raven extended a hand to her leader, and he accepted without hesitation. The Atlantian concentrated very hardily on both entities and their feelings and what he could find of their thoughts.
From Raven he found, to his amusement, a wry kind of humor, slight concern quickly giving way to her usual deadpan manner of quirks...and curiosity?
He wasn't certain what that was for, but pushed it aside, focusing now on Robin.
From him Aqualad gathered a sense of gratitude from Robin to Raven, a pleasure that came of her offering to help him up, and...ah, there, an attraction...a desire...and smugness?
Again, Aqualad was thrown, but only for a moment. For as Robin got to his feet and Raven unconsciously withdrew her hand, he made the debatable mistake of letting his masked eyes flick over to Aqualad's unmasked ones.
And there the Atlantian read the reason for the 'smugness'...and, he almost laughed out loud.
The bird actually thought he was getting an upper hand with Raven, Aqualad realized, thought he was more important to her.
He probably is, Aqualad admitted to himself dourly. Raven had mentioned something about a bond and how it was odd that she could not communicate with Robin through it, as she had actually done so in the past. Aqualad had, at the time, given a polite nod and a quasi-pensive 'ah' in response, all the while thinking: luck of the draw.
For the fact was Raven couldn't communicate with Robin and so had turned to him after his offer—luck of the draw indeed.
Aqualad drew his mind's wanderings back to the present just in time to see Raven turn to glance at him. As an honest reflex, he smiled and most of his assumptions confirmed themselves in the frustrated look of her leader standing behind her, giving him what could be classified as a rather unhealthy death glare.
If looks could kill...
"You slept on that one," the Atlantian stated, gesturing at the correct couch of three and Raven, surprised, nodded.
How did you know? She inquired and Aqualad sent her waves of approval. That thought was pretty clear of undercurrent thoughts, sound and nothing extra really got in her way of telepathic communication that time. Raven felt unusually touched by the approval, having thought she was far past the point of playing typical student to teacher, she found herself proved wrong. It was nice to be commended for work after all and she warmed a bit at Aqualad's positive resonations.
"It's called telepathy, perhaps you've heard of it?" he joked and he was only just aware of a sound behind him before a pillow from said couch decided to enthusiastically bean him on the head. The exchange was excessive in playful nature for Raven to say the least and Cyborg quirked an interested look from behind his magazine while Beast Boy did the less subtle thing of staring.
Robin too was staring, but then there was that damn mask so who could really tell?
Starfire stood to his left, one hand limply holding a wooden spoon, the other hanging loosely at her side.
She could tell exactly where the walking traffic light was looking.
And her earlier accusations still fresh in her own mind, she thought she had an idea why. Starfire was not stupid. Naiveté was vastly different from stupidity after all and even that continued to decrease, day by day. So it was that Star coughed softly to alert Robin back to himself, tear his gaze from the teasing going on between empath and telepath. He turned to her.
"Friend Robin, on Tameran it is of great importance when one finds the one with who they should like to be," Starfire said a little sadly.
"And what of arranged marriages?" Robin asked, defensive, but not unkind.
"Not everyone can be happy," she replied very, very quietly and Robin's defensiveness crumbled to the dust of self-loathing.
"Star...I'm sorry, I really am. I don't know what I've been thinking lately. I just..." Robin fisted a hand of his hair, as if to pull it out, frustrated and confused and angry all at once.
"As I was saying though, friend Robin, when one finds that other one, it is of importance that the one doing the finding should speak. Or the other may never know they have been found. I found you friend Robin," Starfire paused here and Robin opened his mouth to say something but she quickly finished, "And I hope there is someone else out there, maybe he will find me this time. But now I am certain. You have found someone too. And...I think you are afraid Aqualad has found that same someone...and friend Robin, that is all the more reason to say something to that someone. I am of Tameran, but we are not so very different from earthlings as all that. I do not...do not understand some things, but this I do...I think," she finished.
The leader of the titans stood flabbergasted. Never, not even in their own relationship had Starfire spoken at such length in one situation to him, and of all the times, he certainly hadn't expected it to be this time for her to do it. But here she surprised him again, something of the way her compassion exuded itself through her eyes and the softness of her voice when she spoke of 'someone'.
He wished he could love her that way.
Part of him wanted to.
Part of him said to.
But letting her words sink in, precious and unexpected as most of the best things in life are, Robin looked over at Raven.
She stood on the other side of the couch now, face to face with Aqualad, and he could tell she wore her expression that she used when she was trying fiercely not to smile. He knew her well enough to see that. And he knew his own feelings well enough to see Aqualad and much of the Atlantian's intentions as the pair exchanged what appeared to be a friendly squabble over something...or over nothing.
He sighed.
What he wouldn't give for Starfire to be wrong...
But she was right.
So he said to her, turning back to meet her emerald gaze, "I hope that someone finds you sooner than you think." A moment passed and he could read the disappointment in her eyes that told him she too had hoped he could somehow manage to love her that way, even now, even after all she had said, for it is in this way that hearts put themselves out to be built and broken. But then, reminiscent of before she did not hide her pain from him, but shelved it in the name of what she was making that godforsaken pudding for.
Their friendship, not so cliché or empty a stereotype as some might make it out to be, as the television and the tabloids could make it or the everyday melodrama could trivialize it...no, their real and true friendship, built on the love that allowed those other troublesome things to come alive.
She did it for that.
And Robin would be damned if he wasn't going to make sure every bite of that pudding of friendship didn't get eaten...even if he had to eat it all himself, a more than probably likelihood, he noted wryly as he noticed Cyborg casually exit the room and Beast Boy slink around the corner, new games in hand toward his room. Aqualad remained, but that was to be expected for some time, it appeared as Robin watched the girl of his imminent affections give a silent laugh at something the Atlantian said to her.
Has she ever been this quick to smile with him?
Maybe you should give her a reason to, his mind prodded him, impatient, and for once Robin didn't strive to ignore it.
Instead he nodded absently to himself...a reason?
He could do that.
Of course, there was Aqualad to contend with...but there was nothing wrong with a little healthy competition.
A slight smirk worked its way across Robin's features.
Maybe a little more than a little.
Sorry this took so long. And sorry for some error and lack of more action...hopefully soon. Review if you've got a sec, thanks! Always appreciated.
-Rei