Disclaimer: I do not own the Teen Titans…waaahhh!
Author's Note: I changed part of chapter one. Not a lot, but instead of Robin calling Starfire a ruby, I changed it to topaz. After thinking about it, Robin's the ruby of the group. So…yeah. If you don't know what I'm talking about, you probably read the revised version.
Chapter Two
Robin was in the corner listening to music at an ear-splitting level while Starfire moved around in the kitchen looking for more mustard to drink. Raven looked over at Beast Boy and Cyborg fighting some kind of game on the Gamestation and sighed. It had been one month since the incident where they had been sucked into her meditation mirror and already the small amount of peace she had gotten from defeating her anger was gone. Turning into her soul self, Raven flew onto the roof.
Robin noticed a flash of black out of the corner of his eye and turned as a black raven flew through the ceiling and vanished. Raven, he thought frustratingly. Just when I think she's going to open up, something happens. Leaving the music blaring, he made his way onto the roof.
Raven floated three feet above the roof in the lotus position and looked at the setting sun. Orange and red soaked through the sky before giving way to the unrelenting ocean. Keeping her eyes on the horizon, Raven let herself remember what had happened the first night she came to the tower. After the others had eaten their pizza and gone to bed, she and Robin had stayed in the living room talking. Feeling strangely connected to the masked teen, she had told him everything.
Well, almost everything, Raven amended silently.
For hours they had talked, all the while sipping on the liquid Robin poured into their glasses. Raven knew now that the liquid was some sort of alcohol. Subtle and at the same time strong, the effects of the liquor loosened her tongue. She couldn't say she blamed their leader for his tactics. During dinner she had remained silent throughout Cyborg and Beast Boy's questions. She had quietly, but firmly, kept Starfire from hugging her to death with a few choice words in Tameranian. Well, one word really. Apparently, the others didn't know that Starfire was a princess—and she didn't want them to know.
She had told him of her father Trigon and his abuse, but not that he was a demon trapped in another dimension. She had told him of Arella, the woman who had given birth to her, and Azar, the woman who had trained her. Raven frowned as she recalled telling Robin of her embarrassing interview with the Justice League. Hawkgirl's voice still rang in her head.
"Evil! Seed of Trigon, leave here!"
It didn't matter that Raven was half human. To Hawkgirl, that was a weak shield against the evil Raven was capable of if she lost control.
She had told Robin of her problems with control.
flashback
"You do meditate, right?" he asked, a frown on his face. "Your chakra must help you."
"Yes," Raven answered. "My chakra, along with the red stones on my belt and the one on my broach, help channel my energy. I don't need to wear the belt or broach all the time, just when I use my powers the most."
"I'd like to start instructing you on hand to hand combat as well," Robin stated. "No use for you to lean too heavily on your powers. Plus, the physical training will add a bit more discipline to your mental shields."
end flashback
Raven was shaken out of her trance by the sound of the roof door banging closed. She was about to blast the intruder when she heard the unmistakable sound of light metal boots against the floor.
"Hello, Robin," she said in her usual monotone.
"Hey Raven," Robin stood next to her and looked up—she was still floating above the roof. "What's up? Besides you I mean."
Narrowing her eyes at the Boy Wonder's lame joke, Raven put her feet on the roof. "That pitiful excuse for a joke is more suited to Beast Boy than you, Robin. What do you want?"
Robin scratched his head and Raven noticed that the gel covered locks barely moved. "I just wanted to see if you were ok," he answered. "You seemed off after the whole Dr. Light thing and then Beast Boy and Cy were in your room."
Raven smirked. "At least Starfire wasn't with them."
"For that small favor you owe me big time," the Boy Wonder stated.
"What do you mean?" Raven said, sitting down on the ledge of the roof.
Following suit, Robin sat next to her. "I mean that I'm the one who kept Star away for so long. She wanted to check up on you and bring you something that sort of looked like soup—only it had no liquid in it."
Raven gave a delicate shudder and looked over at her fellow bird with what was almost a grateful light in her eyes. "You're right, I do owe you."
Robin sat rubbing his chin for a moment. "What to do?" he wondered out loud. "What to do?"
"As long as it doesn't involve another rubber chicken or tutu, I'm fine with it," Raven said.
"There's a poetry reading at the Desert Rose tomorrow. A poet is gonna read from his new book and a few of his favorites," Robin said. "He's kinda starting out, but Barb—a friend of mine heard him in Gotham and told me that I'd find it interesting."
Raven's eyebrows rose at the mention of another girl—she (and anyone with a set of eyeballs) could tell that the Titans' leader was crushing on a certain redheaded alien. "The Desert Rose is a bar, Robin." she said. "We're only fifteen."
"I'm sixteen," Robin corrected. "As you will be as of 12:01 am tonight."
"How did you—" Raven started.
"You told me remember?" Robin interrupted. "And you do owe me a favor. How bad could celebrating your birthday be?"
Raven remained silent, thinking about her eighteenth birthday and what was destined to be.
"Even if you don't want the others to know," Robin said. "You should do something."
Raven's head whipped around as a thought occurred to her. "You didn't put my birthday in the computer files did you?"
"Don't worry. It's in an encrypted file. Far away and in a place only you and I—and possibly Cyborg—can find it." Robin assured.
Raven sighed. "What about the bar, Boy Blunder?"
"It's okay, the Desert Rose is just a coffee shop-slash-club that sells alcohol, too. They're giving out wristbands and everything. Having a wristband equals no drinking alcohol." Robin explained.
"Okay," Raven answered. "If I'm gonna celebrate my birthday, I can think of worse things than spending it listening to poetry."
"Don't forget your handsome date," Robin boasted.
"Is this a date, Bird Boy?" Raven asked, raising an elegant eyebrow. "I don't think Star would like that."
"It's just two friends going out and enjoying each other's company, Bird Girl," Robin replied ignoring Raven's comment about Starfire. His mask rose over one eye as he mimicked Raven's look. "But I do have one condition."
"I knew it," Raven voiced.
"We have to go as civilians. No powers, no costumes. I'll meet you in your room and you can phase us down to the garage. That way no one will see us." Robin said.
"What if the others knock on our doors and we're not there?"
Robin smirked. "Well the others leave you basically alone and I'm just gonna tell them I'm going out."
"What time?" she asked.
"The stage is open at 7, which means it'll really start going at 7:30, so I'll be at your room by 6. That'll give us some time to eat before. We'll take my motorcycle—the black one," Robin qualified at Raven's pointed look.
"Good," she nodded. "If we took the R-cycle, we would've been recognized in no time.
"So it's a date that's not really a real date but an outing between two friends and teammates?" Robin asked.
"It's something," Raven answered.
Chapter 3