Disclaimer: The Teen Titans do not belong to me.

Chapter 3

What am I doing? Raven asked herself as she got ready for tonight. Opening her closet she sighed. Cape, cape, leotard, leotard, leotard, black leather pants, black jeans, and 3 baggy shirts—in black. Robin had told her to dress up and out of uniform.

Putting on the rattiest of the three leotards, Raven focused her energy and the fabric rearranged itself into a long sleeved blue-black fitted top. Tilting her head, Raven sighed again.

Might as well go all out, Raven thought and focused her magic again.

The top was still fitted, only now it was shorter at the bottom and allowed her pierced belly button—with its tiny silver raven—to show. And it was still long sleeved, sort of.

The top now covered only one shoulder, leaving the other bare, and the sleeve from that shoulder had a slit up to her upper arm with a band of fabric gathering the ends at her wrist. Raven then put on the leather pants and the pair of black stiletto heels she had bought for her birthday last week.

A girl's entitled to a few luxuries, Raven smirked as she buckled the strap around her ankle. No one on the team knew of Raven's love of a good pair of heels and leather. They might suspect the fondness for leather, but never the love of footwear. Robin's jaw is gonna drop to the ground, she predicted.

Turning to her vanity mirror—not the meditation one—Raven stared at her reflection. She looked almost normal. Now for the hair and make up, then accessories, Raven decided.

Taking a silver brush and a pair of ebony chopsticks with silver etchings, Raven put her hair in a sleek top knot—allowing two strands of hair to frame her face. The affect was a hairstyle that looked haphazard and at the same time was very hard to dislodge. Frowning at her chakra, Raven tried to figure out what to do. She couldn't take it off—that would hurt like all holy hell. Looking in her jewelry box, Raven found a simple silver linked necklace. After weaving the necklace through her hair, she took the ends and—using a bit of magic and some adhesive—attached them to her chakra. Now it looked as if her charka was a pendant on her forehead.

Pleased by the effect of the necklace, Raven picked up an eyeliner pencil and traced the Smokey black color around her lavender eyes. That done, she brushed some translucent powder over her eyelids and smeared some dark berry lipstick on her lips. After adding some clear lipgloss, Raven put the lipstick, eyeliner, and lipgloss in a tiny black handbag.

Looking back in her jewelry box, Raven took out a beautiful silver and ruby jeweled torq. The flexible metal fit around her neck, leaving the ruby ends resting against her collar bones and giving Raven the sensation of being gently strangled. Picking up a pair of earrings, she put them on. The small ruby stud in front was shaped like a small raven, while three thin chains of silver trailed down from the stud in the back and brushed her shoulders every time she moved her head.

Choosing to not wear any rings, Raven reached for a wide black leather wristband with silver stitching and embroidery. After fastening it to her left arm—the one bared by her top—Raven looked at herself and smiled. Happy Birthday to me, she thought.

Just then, a knock sounded on Raven's door. Sensing that the person behind the door wasn't Robin, Raven summoned her cloak and pulled the hood over her hair. When the knock sounded again, she opened the door to find a hovering Starfire.

"Friend Raven," she started. "Would you like to watch this movie with me?" Starfire held a DVD box in front of her—almost smashing Raven's nose into her skull in the process. "It is the 'Miss Congeniality' film."

Raven sighed. I will not feel guilty for going out with Robin, she thought as she looked at Star. He's just taking me out for my birthday. Nothing more.

"No thanks, Starfire," Raven answered in her customary monotone. "I need to meditate and besides," she added when Starfire started to speak again. "Robin asked me to look through my spellbooks for a way to track the Hive kids."

Starfire's insistence to bring Raven into her world of pink, fluffy clouds screeched to a halt at their leader's name. "Yes," she stated. "Robin mentioned that he too will be tracking the Hive tonight. I offered to accompany him, but he told me to stay here."

"Why don't you ask Beast Boy or Cyborg, Star?" Raven suggested. "And tell them not to bother me."

Starfire nodded and turned to the right—towards the living room. "Good luck with your search, Friend Raven," she said as she flew off.

Waiting a few minutes to make sure the alien girl was gone, Raven turned to her left. "You can come out now, Robin."

A dark head peered around the corner, a pair of sunglasses covering his eyes. "I'm just glad Star didn't decide to go to Beast Boy's room first," he admitted. "It would be hard enough to explain my hair—let alone my outfit."

Stepping aside to let the Boy Wonder into her room, Raven looked over his clothing. True enough, Robin's hair wasn't gelled to within an inch of its life. In fact, it fell against his skull in a rather flattering way. His bangs were on the long side and his side part caused them to flop over his right eye every so often. Robin also chose to wear black tonight. The tight button-up shirt showed his thin, but toned chest to full effect. Black jeans with a silver chain holding on to his wallet, black boots, and a leather wristband with the "Batman" insignia in gold thread on his left wrist completed his outfit.

"Looking good, Robin," Raven said.

"I would say the same to you, but you're cloak's still on," Robin replied. "And it's Richard tonight, Raven."

"Alright, Richard, call me Rachel." Raven said, taking off her cloak and placing it in her closet. "Let's go."

Letting loose a low whistle, Robin looked Raven up and down. "You sure do look nice, Rachel, but your hair looks too much like a certain Titan I've heard about."

Touching her hair, Raven sighed and closed her eyes. After she opened them, she touched a strand of ebony black hair. "Better, Richard?"

Catching her hand, Robin smiled. "Beautiful, but I really like the purple better."

Blushing, Raven phased them down to the first floor of Titans Tower.

"So Gar picks up what's left of the cheesecake and smears it all over Victor's face!" Richard finished laughing.

Rachel gave a small smile and glanced at Richard across their small table. "That's believable," she said, sipping her green tea and nibbling at her lasagna. After leaving the Tower, both she and Robin had agreed to use their real names—when talking about themselves and the others. It was easier for them to talk freely if no one knew who they were talking about. "What was Kori's reaction?"

Richard waved a hand at a passing waiter. "You know Kori," he said after asking for some coffee. "Always the peacekeeper."

"Hmm…" Rachel looked into her tea and set the cup down. "What are we doing, Richard?"

"What do you mean? We're just having dinner and then going to a poetry reading."

The empath stared at her leader. "You're confused, Richard. I can feel it. About me and Kori." The waiter had returned with Richard's coffee and tried to act like he wasn't listening. The two teens had been the gossip of the waiting staff ever since they pulled up in Richard's expensive black Suzuki.

"I don't know, Rachel," Richard answered. "I like Kori and she's beautiful, you know? But you're beautiful, too. Just in a different way. There are things I can talk about with you that Kori won't—or can't—understand. She'd make a great girlfriend. You make a great girl friend."

"As long as a friend is all I am, Richard." Rachel glared at the hovering waiter. "Could you get us the check, please?" Leaning back, she looked Richard in the eye. "Kori'd be better for your disposition anyway. You're dark enough as it is. Besides," she added, giving a delicate shudder. "Rich and Rach sound way too cutesy for the two of us. And you know that's what the others would call us if we got together."

Richard nodded and smirked. "Birds of a feather and all that I guess. You're right, of course. But the fact that I like Kori as more than a friend doesn't change the fact that we work together. It would get too messy if something went wrong. If I took her out like this," he gestured to the crowded restaurant behind her, "she'd never take it as a friendship thing. She's all hearts and flowers. You can be that too, but you'd stop and check for thorns first."

Rachel nodded. "As long as we understand each other, Richard. I do not want to see what happens when Kori loses her temper."

Raising an eyebrow, Richard responded, "Does Kori have a temper?"

"Why wouldn't she?" she answered. "People from her homeland have tempers just like the people from mine. But we both hold on to them with choke chains."

"God help the men you two finally choose for boyfriends," Richard said, wincing. "And I hope that they never piss either of you off."

"Better start praying, Rich," Rachel said standing up. "From the looks of things when Koma visited, Kori would like nothing more than for you to be her boyfriend. Which was why I was worried about going out tonight."

"It's your birthday, Rach," Richard shot back as they left the restaurant. "Might as well celebrate it."

"By all means then," she said as she sat behind him on his motorcycle. "Let's celebrate it."

Author's Note: Raven's a bit out of character here, but she's still female enough to like shoes goshdarnit! Oh, and I'm gonna be using their non-Titan names for a while (a lot in the next chapter) so here are the names of the Titans and their friends/enemies.

Names:

Robin Richard Grayson

Raven Rachel Roth

Cyborg Victor Stone

Beast Boy Garfield Logan

Starfire Kori Anders (her Tameranian name is Kori'andr)

Blackfire Koma Anders (her Tameranian name is Kom'andr)