Q: Why does Raven of all people wear a leotard?
"You're sure we'll be able to find her in all this?" Robin asked.
"It'll be easier here than in the stacks," Raven said dryly, her gaze unwaveringly fixed on a stall across the busy square. "Trust me, Robin. Bibli Pema is like clockwork about this. At 3:00 she comes to the pastry stall and talks to the baker. After she's done, we'll intercept her, and then we can ask her for the Lolænder Grimoire."
So they were going the stake-out route… not that waiting for a librarian to get her afternoon pastry was much of a stake out, but treating it as such made it easier for Robin to accept that there was little for him to do at the moment. He kept his eyes peeled for the woman: the Biblitekisto Pema Lolænder, Azarath's Head Librarian; according to Raven she had a long braid, round glasses, and a tendency to wear yellow.
The other Titans had no issue with waiting, since they weren't paying attention to the mission at all. They were too busy ogling the lively city around them: Azarath.
It was a golden city. That was the best way to describe it. It's sky glowed permanently saffron thanks to the twin suns circling at either end of the horizon. Clay and copper buildings rose out of the red rock, all with strange spiraling shapes and large open windows. Even the air was warm and soft with water vapor. It wasn't at all what Robin had expected the homeland of his shadowy, indigo-loving teammate to be like.
Behind them, rising high above the market square, were the walls of the temple garden, and above even that, the temple itself, so solid and gargantuan Robin wondered if it was actually a mountain that had been carved into the shape of a building. Monks flowed in and out in a steady stream, carrying baskets and bundles to fill with the day's groceries.
The square was packed with people. They flew in from the adjacent streets and flowed down the lines of stalls on foot, all wearing brightly colored cloaks and various head coverings over dresses and skirts and the very occasional leotard - not a pair of pants in sight. Robin, Cyborg, Beast Boy, and Starfire fit right in as long as they kept their new costume cloaks pulled in close.
Suddenly Beast Boy giggled. "Ha, look at that old man."
Robin looked where he was pointing. An old man in all white was making his way slowly down the line of stalls. His hair stuck out in all directions from under his cap, and he had the knobbiest knees Robin had ever seen, knees which were made plainly visible by his leotard. His cloak billowed behind him, and the overall impression he gave was that of an enormous wading bird.
"Don't point," Raven hissed. "People will think you're homophobic."
"Wha?" said Beast Boy, dropping his hand. "Why would-"
At that exact moment, another old man in a mini dress appeared and took the heavy basket from him; the first old man kissed him on the cheek
"Dude!" Beast Boy exclaimed. "It's like she knows everything. How do you know everything?" He demanded, rounding on Raven.
Raven shrugged, still blank faced and watching the baker's stand. "He's a monk in the temple. I must have seen him around growing up."
Robin's expression didn't change, but he knew there was something Raven wasn't telling him, and his detective's mind, honed by years of working alongside Batman, jumped from idle to investigative in an instant.
He looked at the two men again. No one seemed to be paying them any mind, and they didn't look guarded or even self-conscious in the slightest… and the fact that this surprised him was kinda sad.
He glanced back at the stall - still no head librarian - and turned his attention to the rest of the square.
Only about half of the people there were engaged in buying or selling; many were talking with friends, or seated on the benches drinking tea. An artist was sketching the doves, a storyteller on a stool was enthralling a whole crowd with clay figures and exaggerated gestures, and a group of children was playing something like hackysack.
If he strained his ears, he could distinguish between the many languages bouncing off the stone streets and copper patinas. Many of them sounded familiar, and one or two of them were languages he actually spoke.
Raven never spoke about Azarath, not like Starfire with Tamaran, but Robin had gleaned some details from the mental connection he and Raven shared.
Azarath was a city of refugees as much as it was a city of monks. People came, and people went, fleeing wars and genocides and finding sanctuary in the peaceful city until it was safe to go home, or until they felt prepared to make home safe again.
Each successive wave brought their unique cultural traditions and news of Earth. Robin could see the evidence of this the longer he looked. It was especially obvious in the way people dressed, in the cuts of their skirts and the fabrics of their cloaks, in the bright tropical prints on dresses that hadn't been in style since the 1940's.
And suddenly Robin noticed something -
Two women consulting a shared shopping list.
An androgynous child playing hackysack
The woman who had just appeared at the baker's stall and smiled brightly at the baker.
And two old men holding a basket.
All wearing short skirts or leotards.
"Oh!" Robin said, puzzle solved. And then he looked at his Azarathi teammate.
"Ohhhh," he said meaningfully, a smile growing slowly across his face.
"Shut up," said Raven.
"I haven't actually said anything."
"You were going to."
"No I wasn't." Robin was definitely laughing now. It wasn't what he had surmised, exactly, that was so funny. It was the fact that she had paraded around with the secret out in the open for two years without any of them suspecting anything.
Raven glared at Robin, and that got a lot more side eyes and nervous glances from the people of Azarath than the kiss on the cheek between the old men had.
"Um, mind sharing with the class?" Cyborg asked, raising his hand.
"Yeah, what's so funny?" BB demanded.
"I am also very confused," Starfire chimed in.
… crud.
"It's nothing," Robin said, thinking fast. "I just realized why Raven's description of Bibli Pema sounded so familiar." He grinned as if he weren't frantically trying not to out his teammate. "Yellow robes and round glasses? You totally based the personification of your intelligence on the head librarian."
Beast Boy gasped. "OMG, you totally did!"
Raven rolled her eyes, but her expression softened. These were her friends. This was her makeshift family. They had accepted her - demonic powers and all - from day one, and they were unlikely to stop just because of a peculiar prejudice some humans had.
"I appreciate the effort, Robin, but that's a lie." She took a deep breath and turned to address the rest of her odd family. "The reason Robin's laughing is because he's just deduced that on Azarath, wearing a short hemline might be the equivalent of shaving your head and wearing rainbow stripes on Earth."
The three Titans remaining in the dark all blinked at her.
"... what's a hemline?" Beast Boy asked.
"And what do rainbows signify?" wondered Starfire.
Cyborg was the only one who understood her roundabout declaration.
"Aww, our little Rae-rae is gay!" As if that wasn't a mortifying enough sentence on it's own, Cyborg picked her up and hugged her. "Thanks for coming out to us. I'm sorry Robin was a prick about it."
"Hey!"
"... Technically I'm bi," Raven said, the words coming out funny since her cheek was being squished against chromium-alloy armor.
"As long as you are still happy, my friend!" exclaimed Starfire - who had slightly misunderstoond the meaning of "gay" - joining the hug and making a Raven Sandwich.
Beast Boy finally caught on. "Dude! We're gonna pick up so many chicks together when we go back to Jump City!"
"No, we're really not."
"I can introduce you to Batgirl if you want," Robin offered cheerfully.
"That won't be necessary."
Raven's feet dangled above the ground as Cyborg and Starfire kept right on hugging her, rocking slightly. Robin may have been the leader, but they were the ones who could be such mom friends.
"You guys are all ridiculous," Raven said, but there was a hint of gaiety in the way she said it. Like she'd been worried about how they'd react, just a little bit, and now that fear was coming to rest.
"…"
"Alright, seriously. That's enough. Put me down before she gets away."
Her friends reluctantly put her down, and Robin stepped back into leader-mode.
"Titans, go!"
Omake:
"So, the leotard does not indicate that you are happy?" Starfire asked, when they'd obtained the spell book, reversed the curse on the Children's Science Museum, and gone home.
"No. It indicates that I like both boys and girls. Romantically."
"And Azarath is like Earth? Where it is more common for girls to like boys?"
"Yeah."
Starfire clapped her hands together so enthusiastically the bed bounced. "So you are advertising that you are available to like-minded Azarathi females!"
A scrap of black magic suddenly chucked one of Starfire's plushies at her.
Starfire dodged it, giggling, before her mood turned somber. "But Raven, you must know that most women on Earth will not pick up on your mating signals."
"...You've been watching nature documentaries with Beast Boy again."
"I have."
Raven leaned back into Starfire's bed and looked up at the ceiling.
"It's not really about that," she said eventually. "I'm not really interested in dating yet anyway. This is just how I dress. I know it's weird here, but if I dressed more like the people in Jump City, it would feel like I was lying about who I am. Even if no one else knew, I would. I dress this way for me."
Starfire grasped her hand. "I understand completely," she said.
Raven smiled, a rare and radiant thing.
"And when you are ready, I will gladly offer my assistance in understanding the intricacies of dating on Earth for women who like women and men."
"... please don't."
- End -
Q: Why does Raven of all people wear a leotard?
A: It's a bi-product of Azarathi queer fashion! :D
This is a pretty ridiculous one shot, but when I first started writing fanfiction, ridiculous one shots were my thing, so I'm sharing this anyway. Hope you enjoyed!
Edit: I love reviews! I love hearing about the quality of my writing, and whether there were any moments that made you laugh, or go awww, or cringe because the characters were OOC. I would appreciate it, however, if you kept your reviews relevant to this story and my writing, and I pray to Azar that no one else will leave me unrelated explicit content in the reviews. That is a nasty and very disappointing thing to discover in your inbox, and this story is rated K.
Thanks!
~Juniper