"Come onnnnnnnn, Raven! You've never had a crush on someone? At least once?"

"Infatuations….are pointless….," I drone into the open pages of Poe. "Especially in the field of work the Titans are in. We can't afford to intimately share emotions because…."

"….because there are always bad guys out there who would exploit our love interests to get the better of our irrational selves…blah blah blah…," Besat Boy rolls his eyes. "Yeah, we all heard Robin's speech. I'm surprised you didn't write it for him."

Page flip. "Then why are you asking?"

"Cuz it's not like we actually LISTEN to him!" Beast Boy smirks. "So admit it, girl. You've had the hots for someone while saving this City. At least once! Haven't you?"

"There's nothing to admit." Page flip. "It would be wrong of me to 'have the hots' for anyone. Those types of emotions are too dangerous for me. I would rather freeze myself in stone than ever fall in love and risk rupturing my mental balance to the point that everyone around me would be in danger from demonic influences." Page flip.

"Jeesh. What an ice princess. Ya know, wouldn't it be simpler to say 'I abstain because of STDs'?"

"…….," I gaze up at him. Frowning. Artery pulsing in my temple. "You are bordering annoyance…."

"Hehehe! I can't help it, Rae! You're so easy to fluster and you just won't admit it!"

"Feh."

"Someone as pretty and mature as you deserves to have some adorable hunk sweeping you off your feet!"

"Try flattering yourself instead. It'll get you farther."

"Farther than you've ever gone!"

I grit my teeth. "Beast Boy, do me a favor and quickly grow a tail so that I can tie it in a knot around your neck."

"Are these the 'demon influences' you keep warning the Titans about?"

"No. This is me pissed off."

"Hehehehe! Like I said, easily flustered."

"Nnnngh." Page flip. "How did you ever become a Titan?"

"I learned to look at the bright side of things." He smirks. "While there's always Slade or Brother Blood hanging around to give us a concussion, there's also always some pretty damsel in distress somewhere just waiting to be saved by yours, fuzzy truly!"

I drone: "I saw Terra this morning ransacking the ladies' room in a desperate exodus for a tampon." Page flip! "How's that for distresss?"

Beast Boy winces. "Eh…..note quite."

"Can't you see I'm reading?"

"Yes."

"Ugh…."

"You're always saving people, Raven. More than any other Titan, you're whisking people away in that wonderful force field of yours. Wasn't there at least one handsome guy in one of those groups whom you fancied while flying to safety?"

"Nope."

"A handsome…girl?"

"Cute. But doubly nope."

"Hey, what about that Goth Guy?"

"……," I raise my head. A pause. Page flip. "Triply nope."

"Daaaah! Jeez! You're impossible."

"Hrm….indeed I am," I say.

Silence.

"……," I gaze up from the Poe.

Beast Boy is gone.

I'm alone in the room.

"…….," I return to the book…flipping a page.

The Titans are young. The Titans are hormonal. Try as we might, we cannot help but bear the sight and breath of each other. Oftentimes those sights may be numb and those sights may be cold but all to often it is otherwise. Being empathic, I sense infatuations coming from the others in waves. Their thoughts and feelings are like bees. Swarming around. Stinging once and dying each and breeding silence until the queen breeds more drones to buzz through the air and rekindle the tension.

Beast Boy had a crush on me. It was the first time we ever met. The initial two weeks of our teaming up with the Titans was one horrific escapade after another of the green elf flirting with me and my inventing nonlethal ways of getting him the Hell out of my sight. When it came time for Beast Boy to realize I was less interested in him than a stork would be interested in a pool of lava, things quieted. Not his voice, of course. He still to this day pesters me like a gnat performing stand-up. But his heart has quieted. In fact, it's turned to a sort of bitter silence. I think that, over time, my attempts to put him to rest only hurt him more. He took my distance personal, and every rational rebuttal and taciturn phrase I had to answer his sociability only emasculated him further into some cold hole of shame and regret. We will never be close friends now. We will never be closer than teammates. And as much as I wanted that and still want that, the last thing I ever truly wanted to do was hurt him. Even if all I did was prompt him to hurt himself.

The other boys have gone smoothly. Cyborg has had a thing for me. He still does, come to think of a few restlessness nights, I sense him dreaming and I am in those visions, more or less clothed. But he is very mature about his 'crush'. He never brings it up to me nor desires to make anything real of his feelings. Which is just as well. Usually those same 'visions' that I'm in….Starfire is in also. I do my best not to touch that.

Robin is difficult to read. He—like most boys—has splitting bursts of attraction torwards the opposite gender at random moments. But he tries hard to repress it. He barely gets any sleep. He lies to us that he's rested well overnight for the next day of training. Everyone believes him, but I see right through his mask and see a pair of young blue eyes uncertain of his future. Robin doesn't know if he's going to take Batman's path or his own. Deep down, he wants to get to know someone intimately. He wants to call someone his 'beloved' and have a family and maybe even have children. But in a way, he punishes himself in favor of a puritanical ideal of vigilantism. And more than anyone else on my team, I am worried about him. And I believe he has sensed that from me. Back when we were the only two Titans working together, he came very close to thinking—for a span of a day—about there being more for the two of us. But maturity grows strong between two birds of a feather. We realized we were distant and had to grow more distant. And thus two heroes were reborn into separate currents that still carry us to some unfathomable depths today. And from what I can tell, Robin is swimming just as well as I can.

In fact, even Starfire is more infatuated with me than Robin is. But I don't want to touch that either. Aliens are….unique.

There simply isn't and will never be anyone that I'd have a thing for. Human or otherwise. This dimension or the next.

Flip page.

Except for maybe Roderick Usher.

He needs a hug.