VI

Too Many Secrets

The boys at the table all knew that, even for Raven, her sudden leave wasn't right. Robin, of the three, was the only one without a puzzled look on his face.

"What was that all about?" Beast Boy asked. "Suddenly she's not interested in congrats anymore?"

"Somethin' struck a nerve, maybe?" Cyborg tried answering the question.

Robin grimaced, knowing there was more to it. "I'll talk to her," he finally said, walking down the hall after her. It wasn't long before he ran into Starfire. She was standing with her back turned to him, looking down the other end of the hall.

Robin put a gloved hand on her shoulder. "Did she say anything?"

Starfire sighed. "No, she did not. She simply continued walking." She finally turned around. "Robin, there is something happening with Raven that she will not confess to. I am worried for her."

"Do you have any idea what?" Robin queried.

Starfire gave Robin an anxious look he didn't recognize. "Perhaps it is best you speak with Raven," she finally answered, lowering her head slightly before continuing, "for she will not speak with me."

Robin nodded, squeezing Starfire's shoulder reassuringly. He then continued down the hall to Raven's room. He knocked quietly on the door. There was no answer. He knocked again, asking for her by name. He gave it another moment before raising his hand to the door again, but this time it opened just slightly. The left half of Raven's face peered out at Robin.

"Is everything okay?" Robin asked. "You seemed a little spooked."

She didn't answer right away. Robin saw into that immediately: she always had a quick, one-word answer before shutting the door on someone if she wanted to be left alone. Her expression remained neutral, but Robin could see something there in her face that was different. He couldn't read it, but it had his attention.

"I'm fine," she finally answered, letting the door slide closed.

"No," Robin responded through the closed door, "you're not. What's going on with you?"

No answer.

"Raven, we're a team. If there's something wrong, you need to talk to us."

No answer. Robin stayed in front of the door for the longest time, hoping she'd open it for him. When it didn't happen, he finally walked back down the hall. He wasn't done with the issue, but Robin would simply have to confront her at another time. As he approached the corner turn, Robin heard the door open again. He stopped, not turning around immediately. He heard the door close, but he couldn't be certain if Raven had actually left her room or not. She was always quiet like that, even against Robin's trained senses sometimes. He turned around, and Raven was standing in the hallway in front of her door.

"It's…" Raven started. She struggled for what to say. It only added to Robin's concern; she was not often at a loss for words.

"Go on," Robin quietly encouraged.

Raven walked forward, slowly. "You're right. There's something I need to address to the team." She stopped in front of Robin, looking straight into his eyes. "You all have a right to know."

-

-

Raven sat there in front of the lounge with the rest of her team arranged on the couch. They had all listened intently to what she told them. She told them of the night they had captured that up-and-coming kid criminal with a freeze device he barely knew how to use. She recounted when she told everyone she wanted to walk home on her own. She explained about the odd aura she was sensing at the time, how she tracked it to a small park, how she turned and fired at a man in the shadows and how a quick fight had ensued before she stopped attacking. Siren wails had sounded in the distance, and the man had left shortly after.

Raven continued about a second encounter the following day, one she walked into on her own while tracking the same sense in the night. This time, it was an old building abandoned in the warehouse district. Though it had started with some talking, there had been another fight that had concluded with both sides wearing each other down. The two had known while one waited to gain back their strength, so would the other. They parted without so much as another word.

Then, Raven talked of the third meeting, about how they were able to speak without fighting. She told them that his name was Zerrich, and that he was from Azarath. She explained that Zerrich had been responsible for showing Raven the entrance to the hill. The conversation turned to the events in the base, and she had no choice but to explain that she had lied and told everyone how she had implied Chang somehow finding the scroll from Slade. She told them of her beliefs of Zerrich's involvement, the confrontation between them, and what he had said about losing the scrolls. She hadn't believed him until Cyborg came in with his report earlier.

Surprisingly, not a soul had interrupted her once throughout the telling. Even Beast Boy had kept quiet. They all had kept eerily quiet. Cyborg was looking at the floor intently, processing everything Raven had said. Starfire sat on one side of the couch, her hands tucked between her knees as she listened. She had kept her head low while Raven had spoken. Robin had his masked eyes looking at her intensely, his arms folded across his chest as he sat. She knew he didn't approve.

Beast Boy seemed to take it a bit more personal. His eyes indicated he was somewhat hurt. He finally looked up at Raven. "You…I mean, I thought we were a team?"

Raven's head came up slightly, her eyes staying on Beast Boy. "I know. And if I'd told you about him, and then told you to let me handle this alone...would you?"

Beast Boy took in Raven's words. "Probably not," he finally said. His eyes seemed to relax more, though he was still troubled. Beast Boy was like that. All the clowning around, and when things got serious Beast Boy's concern switched on almost as powerfully as Starfire's. He cared about the team. They all did. It was one of the reasons she'd left them in the dark.

"That's not the point," Robin said, his voice stern. "Beast Boy's right. We're a team. Whether Zerrich was your sole responsibility or not wasn't your decision to make."

Raven looked back at Robin, though she kept her face neutral. "Would you have made the decision to let me handle it?"

Robin kept his eyes locked on Raven's. "You shouldn't have closed out the team. He's already in the city. What he does or might do is on us. All of us. Was it right for you to own that responsibility?"

Raven didn't answer. She didn't need to. Robin was right. For that while, when she thought Zerrich really had set them up, not telling the team meant keeping them from preventing consequences the entire city would blame them for regardless. It was the team's duty to keep Jump City safe.

She looked at Robin and remembered his obsessions with Slade. She remembered how the team tried to talk him back to reality, even as recently as two months ago. He'd finally put it behind him. Raven, in turn, had been staring down that same path. Granted, she was not given nearly the same time to dwell on her situation as Robin. In the end when she still thought Zerrich lied before Cyborg's findings proved otherwise, Raven was willing to take it to the team. Even if it meant their involvement would drive Zerrich away.

Still, now that they knew, would she still make Zerrich a priority in her mind? She was just as capable of fixating on one person as anyone.

"It should never have gotten this far, Raven," Robin finally said. "You should have come to us sooner."

Raven let her eyes drop, though her head didn't move. "I know."

The team was silent. Maybe they were expecting her to fight back, to be defensive. Raven didn't have it in her at the moment. Somewhere in her mind came a thought. The scroll found off of Chang had indeed been in Slade's computer database. It meant that Slade had found the first scroll. If the museum scroll still blank from use was any indication, that being the particular one Zerrich had read last, then both scrolls had been lost within the last two months. Slade had been in the city recently. It coincided with Robin's outside-triggered hallucination. A new question emerged. What made him abandon his base for Chang to find?

Her eyes looked up at Robin, who had been saying something to her. She hadn't been paying attention. "I'm sorry," she said. "I was just thinking. Slade's been in the city recently. After he supposedly fell into that pit of lava. Zerrich hadn't been around then. The museum scroll was a blank too, and he'd lost them both at the same time."

Robin put his head down. She could tell he was frustrated with her for not listening, but he was digesting what she'd said. "So, Slade was here two months ago. At least. That's how long you said it takes for these scrolls to activate again?"

"It's around the time you hallucinated, too," Cyborg added. Robin clearly didn't like being reminded of it. "Rob…we never told you, but…"

Robin looked over at Cyborg. "The mask was triggered remotely. I kinda figured it out. That wasn't the first time I handled that mask, but it was the first time it ever messed with my mind."

"So," Beast Boy said, "we're switching from this Zerrich guy back to…Slade again."

Robin shook his head. "There might still be a connection. We have to be careful."

Raven didn't argue the point. Though she had her doubts with Zerrich being connected with Slade, things were still way up in the air.

"Do you feel this Zerrich to be connected with Slade?" Starfire asked Raven.

"It's hard to say," Raven answered. "There really isn't proof of it."

Starfire nodded. "Yet…you are still wary of him."

Raven looked up at Starfire. "He's from Azarath. My home. I'm wary of anything from home that doesn't come from the usual mold."

Cyborg chimed in. "We might want to look into seeing if we can't find anymore proof one way or the other on what's goin' down with Slade and this new guy. I'll talk to the inspectors and see what else we can find down at the base."

"I can double over the findings if you need me to," Robin volunteered.

"Thanks, Rob," Cyborg answered. "But you'll have to be quiet about it. You know how the Commissioner gets when you start one-uppin' his people."

"I don't really care," Robin said. "We need to find out what's going on. That's what's important."

"Hell yeah," Beast Boy added. "Why else are we in this city?"

The rest of the conversation discussed either where Slade might have come into things or what details Raven hadn't clarified on Zerrich and whatever she'd seen or talked to him about. After it was agreed that they were done, the team stood up and went to wherever they chose. Raven made her way back to her room. As she got to her door, she could feel a presence from the far corner.

"What?" she asked, quietly.

Robin walked towards Raven. He stopped when he was close enough, keeping his masked gaze on her. "I just don't get it. What's gotten into you?"

"Look," Raven countered, not looking back at Robin, "if you're going to keep hammering the point that I shouldn't have kept this secret from the team—"

"Raven, this was big. You've kept to yourself about your life before, and you've kept your privacy just that. But you've never lied to the team about something that had the potential to affect all of us. I'm disappointed in you. You're better than that."

"I slipped up. What else do you want me to tell you?"

"I'm not buying it," Robin shook his head. "I can't believe you'd do this on accident. What were you thinking? What's going on inside your head?"

Raven looked up, narrowing her eyes. "You really think you want to know what goes on in my head?"

"It would sure help me understand what's happening with you."

"You couldn't begin to understand," Raven said, turning for her room.

"Then help me understand," Robin countered. "We have a bond, remember? You've been inside my mind."

"So you suddenly want inside mine?" Raven deadpanned. "You want to travel around in my brain now?"

"I think I've already been," Robin answered.

Raven kept her face steady, but the last statement bothered her. What did he mean, already been?

"Like, right now," Robin continued, "that face you're making. It looks like the same straight face you always give. Before, it looked like the same old Raven. I could only assume there was more there. A mask I could never see past. Now…I think I see into it."

"You…think?" Raven asked.

"Raven, all those calm and straight faces you give…" Robin struggled with what he wanted to say. "When I see your expressions, they don't just look like plain masks. I can see something in your face, now. Something I couldn't see before. But, I can't always decipher it."

Raven looked away from Robin a moment. She thought back to that time trapped in the infirmary, digging through Robin's thoughts in the hopes of finding his perceptions of Slade to be false. "Sometimes, when delving into a person's mind, the subject keeps a sense of the spell caster—an imprint. It can be anything, such as emotions, memories, even insight into the caster's health."

Robin nodded. "I think I touched your mind while you were in my head. I don't know about memories or emotions, but right now I can tell that you aren't okay. I can get this sense from you that there's more to all this and that you're keeping it inside. I know it's your nature to be defensive, but maybe you keep us out because you're afraid we couldn't understand. Please, help me to understand. That's all I'm asking."

Raven stopped, turning her head in Robin's direction without looking at him. "I don't think you'd be ready for that."

"Okay, fine. Not all at once. But give me something. I know something's been bothering you lately. I don't know if it's connected with Zerrich. Maybe it's more than all this. Maybe it's not." Robin walked over to Raven, putting an arm on her shoulder. "I don't think you can keep this to yourself. If this could end up concerning us in the future, you need to say something."

It was a long moment before Raven finally nodded once. She really didn't know if what she was feeling would later concern her teammates, but at this point she had nothing to lose. There was no real reason in keeping it to herself except for humility. Right now, that didn't seem so important.

"The past few days, I've been sensing…feeling something. Some new irritation in my mind. Dealing with it is just like dealing with any of my emotions. But this one takes microscopic bites at the back of my neck. I feel flustered in the mornings. I feel it a lot more than I normally do. In the recent evenings it comes on strong enough that I'm forced to meditate again. That's never been routine, disregarding small…annoyances from the team once in a while.

"And then, there was Zerrich. At first, I thought he was the cause. Now, I just think there's a connection. I felt like he held my answers, whether he was aware or not. I didn't want to cause him to disappear. I needed to know what was going on. I don't even know what the connection might be. I kept asking myself, where is this feeling coming from? Is it a premonition? A warning?"

"A warning about what?"

Raven looked quickly at Robin. She realized she wasn't ready to tell him about her past just yet. About her history.

About her future…

"I'm not sure I can go into that right now."

"Raven, if it's important…"

Raven looked at Robin directly. "You said that not all at once was okay."

Robin wanted to say more, but he sighed instead. "All right. I'm going to go down to the police station with Cyborg. But I want to continue this again. I don't care if it's just us."

Raven simply looked to the floor. There was far too much going on, and she wasn't even sure everything she had considered was related. Raven didn't say another word. She simply turned around and walked inside her quarters. Robin didn't stop her.

-

-

It had been five days since the discussion with the team. In those five days, the irritant in Raven's mind remained steady. Each morning she would meditate that extra amount of time needed to keep her focus, only to have to do a second meditation later in the day. The second time took nowhere near as long as the morning routine, but it was disrupting nonetheless.

Raven finished her dinner and got up from the sofa. The boys had come back with fried chicken and a large side of coleslaw and mashed potatoes for Beast Boy. Raven made no ceremony of putting her dirty dish and utensils in the sink and going back to her room. The city's activity for the past week had stayed normal, with two minor burglaries on back-to-back days and another run-in with Fang just that afternoon. The spider hybrid had gotten away, but not before the Titans had been able to retrieve the property he had stolen.

Raven walked down the hall and entered her room, letting the door slide closed behind her. As she had surmised, there had been no sign of Zerrich from anywhere in the city since their last encounter on the embankment. It had been Raven's hope that he would surface somewhere. She'd finally settled her mind around the possibility that he would abandon whatever task he'd set out for. It didn't sit well with her, but there was nothing she could do about it. Raven could only hope that there was no connection with Zerrich and the irritating sense in her mind. If there was, she might not ever find her answers now. Raven hoped those answers weren't as important as she thought they were.

Raven reached for a book on one of her shelf cases when the room lights went red. The warning klaxon sounded, followed by Robin's voice over the intercom.

"Titans, move!"

Raven quickly dissolved through the floor and made her way to the garage.

Sounds like things aren't going to turn out quiet tonight after all.

-

-

(note: I'd like to mention that this story takes place after season 3 but before season 4. I won't be intermixing whole episodes from season 4 into this story's continuity as a result, but I decided some of the issues touched on—like Robin's mental bond with Raven—needed to be addressed. Therefore, I moved the discussion ahead a little. Which is really just one line in this case.)