7Snogs: Theme 6/7: Argument
A/N: I wanted a different reason for them to argue, but I couldn't think of one. Speedy in my head is pretty easy going and laid back and I wanted him incredibly pissed. ((shrug)). I don't think I got that across here either. Anyway, if these one-shots are to be related in any sense, it certainly wouldn't be chronologically, so don't expect this one to deal directly after the last one and don't be confused when it seems this one is chronologically set before many of the ones that I've posted before. (More explanation below so as not to spoil the reading).
Explanations
by Em
"A kiss is a lovely trick designed by nature to stop speech when words become superfluous."
- Ingrid Bergman
"Just what the hell did you think you were doing?"
Raven blinked in the face of such ire. "Pardon?" she finally spoke.
"Nevermind," Speedy exhaled, "I know what you did, I saw it," he leaned down a little so they were eye level, "What I want to know is why you were stupid enough to do something so reckless?"
Everyone was so shocked at the vehemence in his expression it took them a moment to react.
"Now, just a minute--" Robin started to speak, stepping up behind Speedy.
Speedy wheeled on him, finger pointed in warning, "You stay out of this," he said. "If it wasn't for you..."
The rest of his sentence died on his lips as he was encased in dark energy and transported to the roof. He spun around to face Raven only to see her face contorted with the effort of keeping her emotions in check. He opened his mouth to continue his tirade, but stopped at Raven's raised hand.
"Stop right there," she warned. "I don't know what brought this on, but don't say another word." She stepped close to him and visibly calmed herself. She shook her head. "You don't know me very well so I'll forgive your slip this one time," she said, her voice deadly calm. "I even appreciate the sentiment behind it, so I'll also explain myself..." she neared him two more steps, her eyes frosting, "This. One. Time," she enunciated so that he had made no error that this explaining herself was not something she would ever repeat. "So, listen well, understand?" she watched as he exhaled a breath. "What I did is do my job. I was in no moment out of control or reckless...I simply did what I do."
Speedy scoffed, but there was absolutely no humor in it. "Oh?" he asked, his expression getting if, at all possible, even angrier. "Taking a bullet meant for someone else is part of your job?"
She couldn't believe she was having this conversation. "I didn't take a bullet." She opened her arms wide and pushed her cloak away, revealing the unbroken material of her leotard and the unmarred flesh of her legs. "I deflected it, and yes," she nodded, "Protecting a member of my team when I can is part of my job." She narrowed her eyes at him, "What would you have done if it were a member of your team in trouble?"
"My life is not worth any more than anyone else's and I would've done everything in my power to protect any of the other Titans, but it would never occur to me to stand in the way of a bullet!" he exclaimed. "Push them out of the way, maybe, but to just stand there as it came at me?"
For a moment, Raven was shocked beyond speech. She felt anxiety and near fear. It occurred to her that he might be imbuing in her his own feelings brought about to the sudden realization that he wouldn't jump in front of a bullet for a teammate. Some psychological stuff had to be going on there, she thought. "I can't tell you how to do your job, Speedy," she said, softer. "You have to do and react to things as you see fit." She exhaled. "You would have pushed them out of the way because you don't have the ability that I have."
The anger was melting away from his expression, but not the anxiousness. "What if you hadn't had enough time to put up your shield?" he asked softly. "You didn't know that you would, you almost didn't."
She shrugged. "But I did," she insisted. "You're making such a big deal about this, but the truth of the matter is I just reacted. I stood in front of that bullet not because I thought anyone's life was worth more than my own. I didn't intend to die for anyone, I just intended to stop it." She shrugged, "Protecting my team is what I do."
"Protecting Robin you mean."
Raven had been explaining so much partly because she thought he might have been feeling some form of guilt over his own actions at some previous moment. She had thought he might have been faced with the same decision she had in that split second before she teleported in at Robin's back when the thug had shot at it and Robin hadn't realized it. She had thought he hadn't been willing to take a bullet for a teammate and so he was angry at her because her actions had made him face that fact, had maybe made him feel as if his actions had been lacking or maybe even brought up more guilt that he might have already been feeling.
The way he specifically brought up that she had been protecting Robin however, made her re-evaluate that.
She knew that Robin and Speedy had always had a healthy sort of rivalry going on between them. You couldn't get two boys so superficially alike to deal together without having some form of rivalry. Raven didn't, however, understand the inflection in his voice when he asked. What did it matter to Speedy if it was Robin she had meant to protect? It wasn't like she had ever not tried to protect him. Hell, it wasn't like he was even a member of her team.
Raven was, to say the least, confused. She might be an empath, but the truth of the matter was, she didn't understand much about human relationships and emotions, even though she tried. She wanted to say something that went to the heart of the problem, as suited her blunt and direct nature, but since she didn't know what the heart of the matter was, she was left with little options.
"Robin is part of the team."
Speedy was not satisfied with her answer. He obviously meant more of the question than it appeared on its face, but again, Raven was at a loss. "Is he worth dying for?" Speedy asked.
It took her all of five seconds to answer, "Yes," she answered, without flinching or inflection. "They all are."
He shook his head emphatically. "Raven, that's..." he trailed off, seeking the words and she waited, hoping he might be able to explain himself to her so she could understand what this whole conversation had really been about. "That's bull," he decided.
Tired of being on such emotional shaky ground, she decided to end this futile conversation. So, she shrugged dismissively. "It is what it is." She shook her head, "Anyway, what brought this on?" she asked, as if just remembering who she was talking to and about what. "Just because we're friends doesn't mean you have any right to react this way."
"To react what way?" he countered, "Like someone who cares about whether you live or die?" He motioned the door to the Tower, "They should all be reaming you a new one for putting your life stupidly at risk, Raven, and that they didn't only shows that it's them who are wrong not me."
She blinked. Was he really trying to say that her friends, her teammates, her family didn't care about her because she trusted her instinct during a fight? "They know that this is my choice to make," she said, her anger rising once again. "And they trust me when we're in a fight." She glared at him, partly in confusion, "They trust my judgment because they are used to fighting alongside me and they know me and know that if I did something it was because it was my best choice." She shook her head, "You don't even know me," she pointed out logically. Speedy flinched visibly as if she'd struck him but she'd had enough of not knowing or understanding what his deal was or why he had accosted her as soon as they had returned from the fight du jour so she ignored the questions such a reaction brought about and pushed on. "We've recently started to get to know each other," she allowed, "And I'd even go so far as to say we're heading toward friendship, but the way I see it, we've had a few conversations and now you think you can treat me like you're responsible for me or like I belonged to you?" She shook her head, "What makes you think you have any right to question me about anything, especially about my choices?"
For a long while, they just stared at each other and Raven was at a loss. At first, she had been amused by Speedy's attitude. Then, when she realized he was more than serious, but actually furious, she had become offended, as if he thought she couldn't take care of herself. Finally, she was confused. Confused that he felt so much over such a simple, half-unconscious action as stepping before Robin to protect him from a stray bullet had been and confused that she had actually done so much explaining to him instead of simply walking away.
"Actually," she said, realizing that she could just walk away now, "I don't need to have this conversation with you," she decided and with that, she turned to walk away.
Before she could get three steps away Speedy grabbed her arm and spun her around. For a moment, he stared hard at her shocked expression but before she could even think of something to say, he had dipped his head and his lips were pressing demandingly against hers.
There was insistence and possessiveness in the way he moved his lips against hers. He claimed her lips with his own in a way she had never even thought possible through a simple touching of flesh. But there was need in the taste of him too, an almost desperation that confused her all the more– a tenderness and frustration that gave her pause and which made her, just for a split second, give in.
When he tried to deepen the kiss, however, she came back to her senses and with a swift shove, pushed him away from her. "What the hell do you think you were doing?" she demanded. She was feeling too many things to decide on any one of them, and the only one she recognized was anger anyway so she went with that one.
His expression was almost more shocked than hers.
She glared at him when he didn't answer, "Who the hell do you think you are to do something like that?"
Something in his expression changed with her question, as if a switch was flipped from unsure and shocked to determined and downright dangerous. "If you have to ask," he said, his tone deeper and rougher than it had been, "then I think I need to explain again." And before she could utter one single syllable, he had cut the distance she had shoved between them and, grasping her head in both his hands, brought his lips down against hers once more.
She stiffened, expecting the same press of almost bruising demand and need as the last time and had pressed her hands against his chest in preparation of pushing him away once again. And although her hands tensed, ready to push, they didn't. His lips against hers were not insistent or demanding, rather, they were gentle and coaxing as if he were sipping of her, as tenderly as if she were made of glass. As if she didn't have the power in her to toss him over the edge of the Tower if she wanted.
That was when she understood the frustration and anxiousness she had been feeling from him all along. That was when she finally got the fear and the panicked look in the lines of his face. That was when she heard the words he didn't know how to speak.
And, finally, that was when she kissed him back.
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A/N: Okay, so, if this series of one-shots is to be related to one another (because if you squint just right, you could interpret them as being in the same universe, but they don't have to be), then this is the order in which they would go...more or less:
A Pause
Practice
Inspiration
Explanations
Ask A Stupid Question
Rumor Has It
Practice and Inspiration can pretty much be interchanged, I just picked that order because I liked it better that way myself, and the same can be said about Ask A Stupid Question and Rumor Has It. I don't know what the next (and final) theme will produce so that order is also open to a possible alteration.
They don't have to be in the same verse, at all. I didn't intiially intend them to be that way anyway. But they can be, and they're not in chronological order, so I thought I'd help you guys out. The point is that yes, this one-shot I'm posting now would be the way in which Speedy expresses his feelings to Raven and it would be the moment from which they start to go out. Which would necessarily have to go after the first time they talk (A Pause) and before Practice where there was just flirting going on but nothing too serious. And obviously before the two one-shots where I make direct reference to an existing romantic relationship between them, namely: Ask A Stupid Question and Rumor Has It.
Spoiler: Next and final theme is "Milk".
Thanks: Up at emsscraps within the next few days.
