Like I said before, just cuz it's about Raven and Robin doesn't mean it has to be R+R...but that's not to say that they won't eventually wind up together or anything like that...and that's not to say that Robin's not gonna get thrashed in a minute...oops, I think I said too much.

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Chapter 14

When he opened his eyes, there were four worried faces hovering over him, the absent face being Red X, for he was busy at the computer. Sitting up was still hard to do, but he managed it, and when they saw that he was awake, their expressions changed to anger. "Why the long faces?" he said, trying to ease the tension, but comedy was never his thing.

"Mind explaining why there's six ounces of xinothium in your blood stream, for one thing?" Cyborg thundered, surprising everyone present.

"It's still there? Thought for sure I'd gotten rid of it," he muttered with a half-smile, as he glanced towards the screens around him. His eyes widened; his bloodstream was indeed a sparkling red color.

"Yeah, you'd think," Beast Boy snorted.

"Here, take a newspaper. Might entertain you for a while, because you're going to be stuck in that bed for three weeks," Raven said with a smirk.

"Seriously? No guys, I'll tell you if you don't make me stay here for that long!" Robin said, almost pleadingly. If there was one thing in this world that he hated, it was hospitals.

Beast Boy grinned. "Well, if you insist, but you're still going to have to stay here for at least one week, until you stop coughing up blood at the very least," he said, a sly grin on his face.

"Fine. I'm sure Beast Boy told you what happened back there? Or at least what he saw?" Robin said, starting off with a question to throw the spotlight on someone else.

"No, actually, we were a bit busy trying to keep you alive. Just tell the story, kid," Red X said, coming over from his place in the corner.

"Whatever. Well, I was kind of, um, given some stuff..." he started.

"More like force-fed. Took three men to pin him down," Beast Boy added with an even bigger grin.

After casting an icy glare in the changeling's direction, he cleared his throat and continued. "Anyway, so they kind of fed me this vial filled with xinothium. It wasn't enough to be lethal, but the effects are less than pleasant," he said, picking up speed as he continued. "Chang planned to kidnap all of you as well, torture us with that stuff, and then let us die. That's why I wanted out of there so fast."

The others were nodding, as if his story needed their approval. "Makes sense," Cyborg muttered.

He nodded, glad that they weren't hammering him anymore. "Didn't think I'd have to tell you about it, though," he mused. "Figured you'd probably think it was just normal captive stuff. Guess I didn't plan on having a whole episode."

After several reassurances that he was indeed alright, he was finally left alone with the newspaper, which seemed to be the only thing to do around here. Sighing, he unfolded it, glad for a distraction, however small.

"City Gets Scare as Titan Robin is in Critical Condition," he read with a smirk. Well, this should be an interesting read. "The citizens of Jump City got quite a scare yesterday when Teen Titan leader Robin was seen running from the Titan's car and into a dark alley, returning afterwards in critical condition." He rolled his eyes. That was putting it mildly. "At about five o'clock, the T-car was seen driving down Melsburg Street, stopping to pull over. According to several eye-witness accounts, Robin jumped from the car, then leaned against it as if dizzy. Following these actions, he ducked into an alleyway, followed close behind by Titans Starfire, Cyborg, and Beast Boy. After some time, Cyborg was seen running into the T-car and revving the engine. Following these actions, Starfire and Beast Boy emerged carrying the Boy Wonder." Wow, they made it sound so morbid.

"'Robin was covered with blood and some other red stuff, and he couldn't see very well, we could tell, because when he tried to wave us off, he waved in the wrong direction,' says onlooker Louisa Hernandez." Oh, had he really done that? Wow, how embarassing. "When we tried to get a better look, there was a huge crowd, and he was yelling to 'pumme down!' and then he got all angry until my daughter talked to him. Then he was all happy for a while." He made a mental note of the girl's name. He'd be sure to send his thanks.

"There is still no word as to the current condition of the Titan's leader, but many citizens have expressed their concern. It is anyone's guess what has happened, and there has yet to be a reporter that can penetrate the Tower to gain more information," Robin smirked at this. No doubt Cyborg had beaten them back with a big stick.

He turned the pages some more until he was surprised to see a picture of Red X. "Petty Theif Joins Titans," the title read, and Robin was interested. "Yesterday it was reported that the Titans were seen traveling with former criminal Red X, and several eye-witnesses swear that they saw him helping the Titans as well. Why this change has occured is anyone's guess, though it may have something to do with the former connections of this character to Titan leader Robin." It continued to describe scenes in which people had seen X working with them, one such testimony including that of a little girl who had seen the original fight between Raven, Robin, Red X, and Doctor Light. "There was a colorful boy who was really brave and he was fighting this guy in a scary lightbulb suit, and this man in a creepy mask was helping, but this scary girl kept shooting dark monsters at them all!" He stifled a laugh. What description.

No doubt there would be a crowd outside the Tower by the end of the day, and he really didn't want to face anybody, but sooner or later someone would find a way to get inside. He sighed. Sometimes the press could be so infuriating...

He read on until he reached the gossip sections of the newspaper. Nothing ever interested him here, of course, and he would have merely skimmed through it if a picture of himself with Raven and himself with Starfire had not caught his attention. Great. Now what were the press saying about his love life? First it had been the whole scandal with Blackfire, which was anything but true, then they had gotten stuck on him and Starfire, then he and Raven were all over the front page when she saved the world, now what more did they want from him? He shook his head. Apparently, when one was a superhero, one got no privacy.

"It has long been rumored that Titan leader Robin has had feelings for the Tamaranean Titan Starfire, but recent events show that the Boy Wonder has been developing feelings for the empath of the team. The boy's heart seems to be torn in half between the two of them. Who will he chose? In a previous encounter, Robin was seen hugging Raven as she hugged him back, but in another such incident, he was seen being strangled by the alien beauty." With a disgusted snarl, he crumpled up that page and threw it at the wall. Couldn't they just leave him alone?

Disregarding any warning Cyborg may have given him, he swung his legs over the edge of his bed and opened the door. Poking his head out into the hallway, he made sure that no one was present before he snuck outside. His room wasn't too far, maybe he could reach it before anyone noticed.

"Going somewhere?" The voice stopped him in his tracks and he cringed at his discovery.

Turning, he found himself staring back at Red X. "Yeah, to my room. I've always hated hospitals. What do you care?" he asked a bit harshly.

Red X laughed, the voice distorter making it sound more like static than anything else. "I'm stuck here, kid. Even if we make it out of here alive, I'm stuck in the hero category from here on out. After that newspaper article, I doubt I'll be accepted back into the criminal world. Ever."

Robin shrugged. "That's how things roll around here, I guess. Looks like you're going to play the hero anyway," he added with a smirk as he opened the door to his room.

"I guess that means I'm going to have to turn you in," Red X retorted sarcastically.

With a short snort, Robin replied, "More like you're going to have to work on your social skills if you're going to help this team out at all."

"Whatever, kid. I'll be conveniently absent when Metal Man finds out where you are, though."

Her mind was still racing. She'd seen the newspaper articles, and the story was still all over the news.

"Teen Titan Robin was seen wounded today-"

"Who's the lucky girl that's stolen Robin's heart? We-"

"The Tamaranean princess Starfire was seen carrying him out, and eye-witnesses say that they were exchanging quiet words of-"

"Former criminal Red X-"

She sighed, flipping through channels. The sooner this all died down, the happier she'd be. She didn't want to think about Robin and Starfire right now. She didn't want to think about what all the media was saying, that they were official now since he had let her carry him out, but it was all she could think about. Anger was becoming more and more dominant in her feelings.

"Friend Raven, are you okay? You have been seeming more, um, down than normal," Starfire asked, sitting down beside her.

Her reaction was beyond her own control; she didn't know she would do it. Anger had taken over. She growled ferally, sending a soft shock to the Tamaranean girl with her powers. Immediately, though, she apologized. "I'm sorry, Star. I don't know what came over me!" she exclaimed, her hands flying to her mouth.

"Raven, I believe that you may require time in the hospital wing as well. I was just headed there as well, for friend Cyborg says that my wounds need tending to as well. Perhaps we can keep Robin company?" Starfire asked brightly, trying to blow it off.

"I need to meditate," Raven replied, then noticing how harsh she sounded, she added, "But I guess it wouldn't hurt..."

Starfire clapped her hands in joy, saying, "Wonderful!"

"Who does the Boy Wonder like?" shouted the television in the background.

"Oh, put a sock in it," Raven muttered under her breath, reached over her shoulder and turning it off.

It felt good to be back in his room again, and he fell down onto his bed, truly appreciating how comfortable it really was. Reaching up, he gave himself the freedom of taking off the mask, something he seldom did. His clear blue eyes scanned his room and his most prized possessions, finally resting on a picture of himself with Starfire.

He was a bit confused when it came to the Tamaranean princess. Others said that it was painstakingly obvious how he felt about her and that he should ask her out already, but he harbored doubts. He could never be true to her without revealing all of the secrets that he had kept all of these years, his real name, his past, everything that they had never known about who he really was.

And yet when he talked to her, he was so easily entranced in her voice, that beautiful song that plucked at the strings of his heart every time she spoke. And those eyes! Those beautiful pools of green, so reminiscent of the green grass of a field, or the shining luster of an emerald. They were pools of open emotion, and he hoped that he would be worthy of them someday.

Yes, it appeared he had finally made up his mind, but how to break the news to Raven? Though he no longer felt that she was a possible girlfriend, he had always felt as an older brother, a protector of sorts. How would he tell her without hurting her feelings too much

And then what if he was really wrong, and Raven really was right for him and not Starfire? Too many thoughts crowded his mind, and the pain in the pit of his stomach wasn't exactly helping.

"Robin, where have you gone?" came a shreik from the hallway. Busted.

A knock on his door echoed throughout the entire room and he placed his arms behind his head, shouting, "Who is it?" as if nothing was the matter.

"Robin, what do you think you're doing?" His blood froze. It was Raven. He tried to clear his thoughts, but it wasn't working. Why did love have to be so complicated?

"I'm staring at the ceiling. Is that a crime?" he retorted.

"No, but it's going to be when Cyborg gets here!" Raven shouted back, a grin evident in her voice.

"I'm on my way out; give me five seconds!" he said, half laughingly.

When the door opened, he was greeted with two angry female faces. "You know you're not going to get better any soon if you sneak out of bed," Raven gentled admonished.

"I was in bed. My bed. I hate hospitals," he explained with his lopsided grin.

Raven's heart was soaring when she saw him. She planned to tell him later that day, but she had finally decided on her choice of boys. She had fallen for Robin, and she was going to tell him so before the day ended and before Starfire had the chance to convince him otherwise.

"Robin, you must get into the bed in the medical ward!" Starfire said with a huge smile, causing her eyebrows to narrow.

She allowed herself to be led into the hospital, but she didn't like it. Truthfully the only reason she went was to be around Robin, but as soon as she was done, she would be gone. She allowed Cyborg to check her for infection, but since the damage was in her soul, not in her physical body, she was allowed to go quickly.

Immediately, she went up to the roof. It was hers and Robin's special place that they had spent time talking on, and she found it easier to think up here than anywhere else. Beginning her chant of "Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos" she allowed herself to begin meditating until the time that she knew was soon: when Robin would sneak out again and come to the roof. Her knight in shining armor.

When she entered her mind, it seemed to be in total chaos. Her eyebrows raised and her defenses ready, she realized that this was Anger's work. She had enlarged her hatred with that stunt she had pulled to save Starfire, and now she was feeling the aftereffects of it.

"Scary, isn't it, how our distractions in times of need often outweigh our own intelligence in order to fulfil a duty, only to come back to torment us later on in our lives?" said a voice behin her.

Raven whirled around, but saw no one. "Where are you, Intelligence?" she asked, for she knew who it was. No other emotion talked that way.

"If you will look downwards, you may find the one you are looking for," came the reply, and Raven did so.

Raven gasped, a bit unnerved. "You're not even a foot tall!" she cried out despite herself.

The yellow-clad Raven nodded, her expression solemn. "Actually, I am exactly six inches in height, but that is not the only problem at hand. It appears that the mere annoyance that Anger used to be has become a full-fledged monster, and I mean that in the literal sense."

Nodding, Raven replied, "I could tell. Everything's bright red if it isn't destroyed." She glanced around. "Where are the others?" she asked, seeing no one else.

"They are a bit preoccupied at the moment. It appears that if Anger has not captured them, she has certainly frightened them into hiding, although I know of two emotions that might possibly still be out; one due to intense, need I say it, stupidity, and the other simply because of who she is," Intelligence replied in her usual, annoying British accent. Why she talked that way was still a mystery to her.

Raven groaned. "Bravery and Happiness?" she asked, already knowing the answer.

"Certainly. What other emotions would be so stupid as to stay out in the midst of all this chaos, if you'll pardon my plain speaking," Intelligence replied, her hands on her hips.

As if on cue, several footsteps were heard in the forest behind them. One pair of footsteps was walking along at a normal pace, but there was a pitter-patter of running footsteps as well. The green- and pink-cloaked Ravens emerged, both beaming.

"You're here! Now we can fight and win and save the day and everything can be a happy ending and I can go back to being shorter!" Happiness beamed. Indeed, the pink-clad emotion was about eight feet tall, not nearly as enlarged as Anger, but still huge nonetheless.

"You want to be short! Look at me! I'm two feet tall!" Bravery shouted, gesturing down at herself, though she was grinning.

"Actually, you are exactly two feet, three inches tall," Intelligence interrupted.

"I'm sorry, did I ask you, Shorty?" Bravery shot back.

"Maybe if you had more brains and less brawn I wouldn't have to!" Intelligence shot back, for once not using more sophisticated vocabulary.

"Stop being so annoying and angry and unhappy!" Happiness gushed, though her eyes flashed.

"Maybe if you had knocked some sense into Raven over there about the whole Anger thing, this wouldn't have happened!" Bravery was shouting at Intelligence.

"Perhaps if you had not interfered with my plans and pushed poor Raven into protecting her friends against the odds and only succeeding in injuring herself, I could have done so!" Intelligence shot back.

"Why do you have to be such an annoying know-it-all?"

"Why must you be so overbearingly optimistic and unthinking?"

"Am not!"

"You are indeed, and furthermore, you have no class or brains, for that matter!"

"EVERYBODY STOP TALKING!" Raven shouted, finally getting the shouting to stop. The two fighting emotions peered at her in curiosity as she took a deep breath. "This isn't going to work. You two combined don't even make three feet, and I doubt that Happiness and I can do it alone. At the very least, we need one other emotion."

"Maybe I could help," said a voice from the forest. The emotion was not evident in this voice, so they were unable to tell to whom the voice belonged.

"Come on out!" Bravery beamed, but the grin fell from her face when she saw who it was.

Confusion, clad all in brown, stepped forward. She was no longer large in size, but she was of normal height. Her eyes were downcast, and she said, "You don't have to stare at me like that, you know. I know what I did was wrong, but I was confused, isn't that my job?"

"It is your job, indeed, and thus you should have consulted one of us," Intelligence said, her eyes blazing.

"I would have if I had thought of that, but Anger was treating me so well, and everything was going wonderfully and I was so big and on top of the world..."

"I get it, but why'd you have to mess with my head?" Raven asked angrily.

"That's my job, I already told you that! Besides, if I didn't mess with your head, you'd always rush into things!" Confusion said.

Hmm, she'd never thought of it that way. "I guess I'll let you off the hook this time, but you'd better be working really hard to make up for it," she growled.

"Raven?"

She whirled. That was a guy's voice. A melodic voice. The voice she'd been hearing in her dreams of late. It was Robin. "Do you guys mind?" she asked.

"Oh, no, we'll be fine trying to round up the rest of the emotions. You go to your Prince Charming," said Confusion, and the others looked at her strangely. "What, you think I didn't have something to do with deciding who she likes?"

"It is true; you would have to relinquish control in order for her to make up her mind. It is not very easy, either," Intelligence said, surely speaking from experience, as she was the one who had to convince Confusion to give in most of the time.

Robin was standing on the roof, waiting for the empath to come out of her trance. He was wringing one of his gloves in his hand, and he wasn't sure how he was going to find the strength to do this to his best friend. When her eyes opened, he felt his heart race with anticipation.

"Hey, Robin. What did you want?" she asked, and her eyes lit up with happiness and anticipation. It broke his heart.

"Um, Raven," he began, and her expression dimmed a bit when he didn't call her by her pet name.

"Yes?" she asked, her voice a bit more urgent this time.

"Um, we need to talk, Raven."